S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
At the time of the American occupation of the Philippines these 
islands were exporting each year a few hundred bales of so-called 
"Manila maguey" fiber. The maguey is a plant closely related to 
the true sisal and to Yucatan henequen, but it produces a fiber some- 
what softer and finer than either sisal or henequen. It is probable 
that maguey (fig. 2) was originally introduced into the Philip- 
pine Islands from Mexico. 
Fig. 2. 
-A maguey plant at the Lamao Experiment Station. Bataan Province, Philippine 
Islands. 
In 1904 the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture organized a cam- 
paign to encourage the increased production of maguey and also 
imported sisal plants from the Hawaiian Islands. This work has been 
continued up to the present time, with the result that the exports of 
maguey fiber from the Philippine Islands increased from 875 tons 
in 1901 to 15,639 tons in 1916. The work of the Philippine Bureau of 
about a large increase in the production of 
Agriculture 
brought 
