14 
BULLETIN 1278, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 
leaves per hour, the larger ones cleaning from 150,000 to 200,000 
leaves in a day ; but all of them operate on the same general principle. 
The leaves are fed sidewise in a continuous row into the machine. 
Each leaf is held near the center as it is carried forward past a 
rapidly revolving scraping wheel which removes the pulp from half 
of the leaf. The grasping device then shifts to the cleaned fiber, 
and a scraping wheel on the opposite side of the machine cleans the 
other half of the leaf. At each scraping wheel a small stream of 
water runs over the clean fiber. The machines are operated on an 
elevated platform, in order that the large quantity of waste may fall 
directly into dump cars that are run under the machine. As the 
cleaned wet fiber leaves the machine, it is assembled in small bun- 
dles and slid down an inclined pole to a workman standing on the 
ground. 
DISPOSITION OF WASTE 
As approximately 96 per cent of the total weight of the leaves 
is waste material, the disposition of this waste constitutes one of 
Fig. 7. — Henequen plants of the " ehuctin-ci variety at the Chucmiehen plantation 
the large items of expense in the operation of a henequen plan- 
tation. On all of the large estates a plantation railway runs from 
the mill to a dump in some near-by field. The waste falls from the 
machine into cars and is immediately carried to the dump. Small 
quantities of the waste when fresh and green are eaten by the cattle 
and hogs on the plantation. 
Numerous attempts have been made to utilize henequen waste for 
the manufacture of either alcohol or paper, but this project has not 
yet been established on a commercial basis. 
DRYING AND BALING FIBER 
After leaving the machine the fiber is carried at once on small 
cars to the drying yards, where it is placed on racks and dried in 
the sun (fig. 9). Under favorable conditions the fiber will dry in 
five or six hours. 
The drying rack on most of the plantations consists of heavy 
upright posts on which horizontal crosspieces are set about 3 feet 
