Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 67.djvu/230

224 The fiber produced by the plant Musa textilis is known throughout the civilized world as manila, or manila hemp. In the Philippine Islands the name abacá (pronounced ab-a-kár) is applied to both plant and fiber. This fiber is distinctly a Philippine product, for the abacá plant, though introduced into India, Borneo and other countries, has never been successfully cultivated other than in the Philippine Islands. Manila hemp was first exported from the Philippines a century or more ago. In 1820 samples of the fiber were brought to Salem, Massachusetts by John White, a lieutenant in the United States navy, and from 1824 to 1827 it began to be used quite extensively in Salem and Boston. The growth of the industry is indicated by the increase in exports of fiber, from 41 tons in 1818 to 137,752 tons in 1903.

The common banana, Musa sapientum, the plantain, M. pamdisiaca, and abacá, M. textilis, are closely related species of the same genus. The banana plant produces a fiber similar in appearance to manila hemp, but lacking in strength; while the fruit of abacá resembles the banana, except that it is filled with large black seeds and has no economic value. The abacá plant is a large tree-like herb fifteen to twenty-five feet high, a single rootstock bearing from twelve to twenty stalks. These stalks, from which the fiber is obtained, are formed of a series of thick, fleshy, overlapping sheaths, each sheath being the petiole of a leaf.

At the time of flowering, which occurs when the plant is from two and a half to three years old, the stalk is cut close to the ground and the leaves are removed. The native laborer, sitting on the ground, inserts under the bark or fibrous covering of one of the outer leaf sheaths a small piece of bone called the 'locnit,' and with it tears off a long ribbon-like strip of fibrous material. Each successive layer is similarly treated down to the central stem of the trunk. The fiber ribbons are collected in the field and are taken to a small bamboo hut where the fiber extracting apparatus has been set up. This crude machine, the 'panguijan,' consisting of a large knife fastened upon a block of wood and operated by means of a bamboo spring and foot lever, is the only method that has ever been discovered for extracting manila hemp. The work of hemp-stripping is very exhausting, the average result of a day's work being about twenty-five pounds of fiber. The record of the numerous attempts and failures to perfect an abacá-cleaning machine forms one of the most interesting chapters in the industrial history of the islands. The introduction of such a machine will be of almost incalculable benefit and will revolutionize the entire hemp industry.

The only treatment of hemp, after the completion of the stripping process, is a few hours' drying in the sun. The fiber is then made up into rough bales and packed over the mountains, or shipped in native boats down the rivers, to the nearest seaport. From here it is taken