. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. -\' Fig. 402. Porto Rican Maguey {Furcra;a tiiberosa). from bulbs. Three-year-old plants It requires for its best development a tropical climate with a moderate rainfall, and a soil of good fertility. Under favorable conditions it grows more rapidly than sisal, producing its first crop of leaves in the third year. The leaves are crushed and the pulp scraped away by machines, but the fiber is afterward washed in soap and water, rinsed, dried, beaten and picked over, requiring a large amount of handling. The green leaves yield about 3 per ce
. Cyclopedia of farm crops. Farm produce; Agriculture. -\' Fig. 402. Porto Rican Maguey {Furcra;a tiiberosa). from bulbs. Three-year-old plants It requires for its best development a tropical climate with a moderate rainfall, and a soil of good fertility. Under favorable conditions it grows more rapidly than sisal, producing its first crop of leaves in the third year. The leaves are crushed and the pulp scraped away by machines, but the fiber is afterward washed in soap and water, rinsed, dried, beaten and picked over, requiring a large amount of handling. The green leaves yield about 3 per cent of dry fiber, the yield per acre ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 pounds. Mauritius fiber is white, .soft, more elastic than sisal, but also weaker. It is used either alone or mixed with sisal and other fibers in the cheaper grades of coarse twine and cordage of small diame- ter. During the past five years Mauritius hemp has been quoted in the New York market at six to seven and seven-eighths cents per pound, usually one-fourth to one cent per pound less than sisal. Ixtle. (Figs. 403, 404.) Ixtle (ext'-le) or istle (est'-le) and tampico are names applied to a group of hard fibers ten to thirty inches long, obtained from the cogollos (co-hol'-yos) or inner immature leaves of several different kinds of agaves and yuccas, all growing without cultivation on the dry table-lands of northern-central Mexico. None of the ixtle-pro- ducing plants has been cultivated for fiber produc- tion, and they are rarely found even in botanical gardens or collections of economic plants. Three kinds of ixtle are recognized by the trade. (In trade quotations the name is usually spelled istle, instead of the Mexican ixtle.) (1) Jaumave istle (How-mah'-ve), a nearly white fiber twenty to thirty inches long, resembling sisal but somewhat finer and more flexible, is used largely in the cheaper grades of twine and cordage and for ore sacks. This fiber is secured from Agave lophantha in the Jaumave valley abo
Size: 1689px × 1479px
Photo credit: © The Book Worm / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1920, booksubjectagriculture, bookyear
