BINDEK-TWIXE FIBER IX THE PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 11 
vide necessary grades for machine-cleaned maguey and sisal,, and 
plans were prepared for a Government sisal plantation. 
During the season of 1919-20 all of the maguey-producing Provinces 
were visited for the purpose of ascertaining the degree of progress 
that had been made and the changes or improvements that should 
now be made. Conferences were held with the local Government 
officials and the planters for a discussion of the fiber situation. All 
of the fiber-cleaning machines that have been installed were inspected 
and necessary arrangements were made for remedying any defects 
in the operation of these machines. Arrangements were completed 
for the transfer of the Government fiber-cleaning machine now lo- 
cated at San Fernando, Cebu, to the island of Siquijor, where the 
need for a demonstration of the machine is particularly urgent. 
Xumerous tests were made with the fiber-cleaning machines that are 
now in operation to ascertain the capacity of these machines when 
operated under normal Philippine field conditions and to determine 
the relative results obtained with sisal and maguey fibers. Sisal 
bulbils were received from the Hawaiian Islands, and 250,000 dis- 
tributed in the Provinces. Diseased sisal plants were located in the 
Province of Cebu, and arrangements were made for the destruction 
of these plants. A demonstration sisal nursery was planted at the 
Singalong Experiment Station in Manila. Plants were furnished 
and arrangements made for the establishment of a demonstration 
sisal nursery and field plantings at the College of Agriculture at Los 
Banos and for a course of instruction to be given at the College of 
Agriculture covering the more essential features of the sisal indus- 
try. A special effort was made to disseminate as widely as possible 
accurate information regarding the possibilities for the future devel- 
opment of the binder-twine fiber industry in the Philippine Islands, 
with a view to stimulating its continued growth. 
RESULTS OF THE COOPERATIVE WORK. 
THE MACHINE SITUATION. 
It was considered when the cooperative work was started in 1917 
that the one thing most urgently needed in order to establish the 
production of binder-twine fiber in the Philippine Islands on a per- 
manently stable and profitable basis was the introduction of machine 
cleaning. The cleaning of maguey and sisal by retting the leaves in 
salt water is a slow, tedious, and wasteful process which requires 
much cheap labor and produces in the end a fiber of inferior quality. 
The retting system encourages, furthermore, the continued use of 
unsatisfactory methods on the plantations, as the small and immature 
leaves are .more easily retted than the large mature leaves. With 
salt-water retting the only available means of cleaning maguey, the 
