the leaf is cleaned in the ancient method (see illustration on next page), and the makers of the finest hammocks, those worth their weight in silver, will not use a fiber produced by any other method.

THE AGAVE PLANT

The agave is one of the most characteristic plants of Mexico. One of the family, the Agave americana, produces the pulque, the intoxicating drink of the country. Great fields are covered with this plant upon the Mexican tableland, and long "pulque trains,' pulque trains," like the milk trains of the United States, roll daily into Mexico city.

This beverage is practically unknown

to the inhabitants of Yucatan, and the variety that produces it is to be seen only as an exotic in the gardens and parks. Its place is taken by another member of the family, whose importance is more far-reaching. The Agave sisalensis furnishes a fiber that not only helps to knit firmer the commerce of the whole world, but binds the sheaves of wheat so that the price of bread in every land is made cheaper for its use.

To the casual observer a field of the pulque plant and one of the fiber plant are very similar in appearance. Both show the same peculiar green, the same many-thorned leaves, but a nearer view soon shows the difference.

There are three known varieties of the species growing wild in the forests of Yucatan-the chelem, the cahum, and the citamci-and I think that I have found a fourth wild variety during my explorations in the interior. There are also two varieties of the cultivated plant-the yaxci or green fiber, and the sacci or white fiber. The last-named plant is the most cultivated and the one producing the sisal hemp, or henequen, of commerce.

CULTIVATION

A thin, rocky limestone soil is generally supposed to be the best for the growth of the sacci plant. Experience indicates that the fiber grown upon this class of soil has a percentage of tensile strength greater than that produced on the richer lands, though the last is more flexible and is longer. The percentage of safety allowed by the cordage-makers is so high that I doubt if the diminished tensile strength of the rich-land hemp would seriously affect the quality of the output. Contrary to the general idea, a poor sandy soil is not congenial to the

growth of a large, full-sized fiber plant. Few, if any, good-sized, well-formed plants grow very near the coast line. The best Yucatan fiber plant seems to be produced in a zone or belt following the coast, about 12 miles away from it and 70 miles wide.

The plant can be propagated in various ways-by seeds, by cuttings, and by scions or suckers. The first-men

tioned method is now never undertaken. Very few of the abundant seeds are fertile, and the time lost in raising the seedlings is great. The second method-by cuttings-is frequently undertaken; the top of an old, nearly worn-out plant is taken just before the long pole that should bear the flowers shoots up. It is cut off and trimmed of all save the newest leaves, and then planted in the ground as though it were a scion. These plants are said to produce earlier than others.

The general method, however, of producing a field of the sisal plant is as follows: A field is cut and the refuse burned; then a month or so before the rainy season the "hijos," or scions of

sisal, that have sprouted under the shelter of the parent plant, are rooted out of the ground when they get to be 18 or 20 inches high, and thrown in a heap. There they lie for two or three months exposed to the sun and the weather. Just before the rainy season, when they seem to be dried up and decayed, they are carried to the cleared fields and planted in rows. Formerly they so planted the young plants that they were separated by spaces of barely 2 yards, but of late years it has been found best to space them so that they will be in lines, each plant separated from the one preceding it by a space of 12 yards and the lines 4 yards apart. (about 1,100 plants to the acre). Thus, long and wide lanes are formed between