Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/229

Rh more than two thirds of the total value of all exported products. Its position is indicated by the following table.

The production of manila hemp is a well-established and very profitable industry, the development of which requires only an improvement in methods of cultivation and the introduction of fiber extracting machinery. Maguey is a comparatively new product, and its value is not as yet well known throughout the islands. Cotton and kapok (tree cotton) are widely distributed and have a general local use. Coir (cocoanut fiber) is produced in enormous quantities, but is not utilized, because of the lack of fiber-extracting machinery. Jute grows in several of the provinces, but is not produced in quantities sufficient for export. These six vegetable fibers, which are among the most important commercial fibers of the world, are all Philippine products, and can be economically and profitably produced throughout the archipelago.

VegtableVegetable [sic] fibers may be classified either according to their structure or to their uses. The former classification includes the 'bast fibers,' obtained from the inner bark of dicotyledonous plants; the 'structural fibers,' obtained from the stalks, leaf stems and leaves of monocotyledonous plants; the 'surface fibers,' or hair-like growths surrounding the seeds of certain plants, and the 'woody fibers' consisting of the whole or a part of the stems, roots or wood of various plants.

Any economic classification is unsatisfactory for the reason that the same fiber frequently has several entirely different uses. Thus, for example, manila hemp, primarily a cordage fiber, is extensively used in the Philippines for textile purposes; while cotton, a textile fiber, is also used for cordage. Considering only their more important uses, we have the following general economic divisions, together with one or more of the leading Philippine fibers of each division.