BULLETIN 1278, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
of labor has not been regarded as a matter of special importance. 
Under these favorable conditions it has been possible for the planters 
to operate on a large scale and to maintain well-equipped and effi- 
cient working organizations. The necessary capital has been avail- 
able for the construction of railways throughout the plantations and 
to near-by towns, for the purchase and installation of expensive ma- 
chinery, and for the building of large and commodious residences 
and other buildings (fig. 2) on the plantations, 
The results obtained, however, have not been uniformly satisfac- 
tory. In some cases the owners of the plantations have made & 
careful study of the henequen industry, have personally supervised 
the management of their estates, and have conducted their business 
efficiently and profitably. In other cases, however, large and easy 
profits have been followed by careless management, waste, and loss. 
Some of the plantations have been neglected by their owners and 
mismanaged by inefficient superintendents. 
Fig. 2. — The mill and warehouse on a henequen plantation in Yucatan 
Yucatan is now entering upon a period of reconstruction, and it is 
inevitable that there should be a certain amount of friction and 
difficulty in connection with the adjustment of the old to the new 
conditions. With the increasing competition of other countries in 
the production of fiber, with a. large increase in the cost of all 
equipment used on the plantations, and with a labor situation en- 
tirely different from that of the early days of the industry, the 
henequen planter is no longer able to conduct his business as it was 
usually managed in former years. 
The tendency at the present time in Yucatan is to increase the 
number and to reduce the size of the henequen plantations. With the 
difficult industrial and economic conditions that have existed in the 
State for several years, most of the old planters have found it 
impossible to cultivate as large areas as formerly. In some cases 
two or more plantations have been combined into one, many of the 
old fields have been either neglected or entirely abandoned, nursery 
planting has been largely discontinued, and various other changes 
