A PRIMITIVE SUGAR-MILL.
"The hacienda covers a large area of ground, there being thousands of acres devoted to the culture of henequin. Then there is a considerable amount of sugar and corn grown on the place—enough for the use of all the employés, and something more besides. In the sugar-making industry the machinery is primitive, the cane being crushed in a mill propelled by oxen in the old-fashioned way, and the sugar obtained from the juice by the processes of half a century ago. The real profit of the hacienda is in the production of fibre, and in this the latest machinery is in use. The old process of making fibre by hand is altogether discarded as unprofitable, and the stripping of the leaves of the henequin is performed by great machines built in the United States or England, and driven by a powerful steam-engine of American make.
"The machinery is not at all complex, and it is evident that no great ingenuity was required to invent it. The scraper consists of a large wheel armed with strong and blunt knives all around its rim. The henequin leaves are pressed against this rim, and by means of a lever, worked by the hand and foot of an Indian, the knives, drawn by the swiftly revolving wheel, remove in an instant the pulp which covers the fibre and lay it bare. Considerable dexterity is required for this work, and we looked on in admiration at the deftness of the Indian who performed it.
"The pulp being removed, the fibre is taken from the leaf in long strips like a 'hank' of very fine silk thread of a beautiful green tinge. It is made into small bundles and placed in the sun to dry. In drying it loses its color and becomes white and silky, and when thoroughly dried it is ready for baling. The only care requisite in the drying process is to see that it does not get wet by the rain, and that all its natural moisture is expelled. Unless this is the case it will ferment after baling, and fermentation means a great reduction in the commercial value of the article.
RAILWAY-STATION IN THE HENEQUIN DISTRICT.
"We watched the machine turning out the fibre, and then went to the baling-house, where the stuff was being put up by a cotton-press into bales of about 450 pounds each. In this condition it is shipped to market; one scraper, requiring the labor of four men to tend it, will produce about one bale of fibre daily, provided the leaves are of fairly good size and quality and the workmen are not novices. The average value of henequin fibre is about $20 a bale, delivered at the nearest railway-station; of course it has its ups and downs, like any other commodity in the world."