14 BULLETIN 930, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGKICTJLTURE. 
Although the large machines have not yet been tested in the Philippines, the 
indications are that in locations where a large supply of leaves is obtainable 
these will prove to be most satisfactory. 
Having observed the Government demonstrations that have been 
made with machines, most of the Philippine planters now prefer the 
largest machines that can be obtained. This is shown by the fact 
that during the last year orders have been placed for 11 of the large 
machines and 1 of medium size. None of the small machines have 
been purchased during this period. 
A number of tests have been made with the Government machines 
for the purpose of determining their capacity, the yield of fiber 
obtained from a given number of leaves, the relative yields of 
maguey and sisal, the relative quality of fiber obtained from maguey 
and sisal, and the relative percentage of fiber obtained by machine 
cleaning and retting. As these machines were adjusted for cleaning 
maguey rather than sisal, as the men who operated the machines were 
not accustomed to handling the large sisal leaves, and as sisal leaves 
of satisfactory quality were not obtainable, the results of these tests 
so far as sisal is concerned can not be considered as conclusive. 
It was found that the medium-sized machine, the cleaning capacity 
of which was supposed to be 5,000 leaves per hour, will, under aver- 
age conditions, clean about 7,00£) of the small maguey leaves per 
hour. In one test made with 1,000 leaves, cleaning was done at the 
rate of 10,909 leaves per hour. The best result obtained with sisal 
was 4,615 leaves per hour. 
The yield of fiber obtained from the average-sized maguey leaves 
was about 17 pounds per 1,000 leaves, or approximately one-third of 
that ordinarily obtained from henequen and sisal. The largest yield 
from maguey in any of the tests was 26 pounds of fiber per 1,000 
leaves. While these leaves were considerably larger than the aver- 
age of the maguey leaves that are now being cleaned, they were much 
smaller than the maguey leaves that can be produced on plants which 
are properly planted and cared for. The largest yield of sisal ob- 
tained in these tests was 47.74 pounds of fiber per 1,000 leaves, while 
other tests gave considerably smaller yields. As it was imprac- 
ticable to obtain sisal leaves of satisfactory size and quality, these 
tests should not be considered as an indication that Philippine sisal 
produces less fiber than the sisal of other countries. 
With the quality of maguey leaves now obtainable and with favor- 
able operating conditions, the medium-sized machine should clean 
approximately 1,500 pounds of maguey fiber in an 8-hour day. In 
all the tests the weight of sisal fiber cleaned in a given period of 
time was less than that of maguey fiber cleaned in the same period. 
