Sesal or Sesal-hemp

Sesal, or sesal-hemp is known as Mexican grass.

It is named after the export harbour of Sisal in the northwest of the peninsula. For some years past, it been used increasingly as a substitute for abaca.

It:

• resembles abaca though lacking the fine gloss.
• is somewhat weaker
• costs from £5 to £10 less per ton
• is only used for ships’ rigging.

The refuse from it has been found an extremely useful adjunct to the materials ordinarily used to make paper.

The Technologist for July, 1865, calls attention to the origin of this substitute, in a detailed essay differing essentially from the representations contained in the “U.S. Agricultural Report” published at Washington in 1870.

The growing importance of sesal and the ignorance prevailing in London as to its extraction, may render a short account of it acceptable.

The description shows the superior fineness of the abacá fibre, but not its greater strength.*

Sesal-hemp is by far the most important product of Yucatan, a rocky, sun-burnt country which is adapted to its growth.

In Yucatan, the fibre is known as “jenequem” as the name of its plant, which has 7 varieties.

1. Chelem, identical with Agave angustifolia
2. Yaxci (pronounced Yachki; from yax, green, and tri, agave). This is used only for fine weaving.
3. Sacci (pronounced Sakki; sack, white), the most important and productive, supplying almost exclusively the fibre for exportation ; each plant yields annually 25 leaves, weighing 25 lbs., from which is obtained 1 lb. of clear fibre.
4. Chucumci, similar to No. 3, but coarser.
5. Babci; the fibre very fair, but the leaves rather small, therefore not very productive.
6. Citamci (pronounced Kitamki; kitam, hog); neither good nor productive.
7. Cajun or Cajum, probably Fourcroya cubensis ; leaves small, from four to five inches long.

Only 1 and 7 are found in the wild.

The cultivation of sesal has only recently been prosecuted vigorously. The extraction of the fibre from the leaves, and the subsequent spinning for ships’ rigging, are already done by extensive steam machinery. This is especially practised by the Maya.

• In the Agricultural Report of 1869, p. 232, another fibre was highly mentioned, belonging to a plant very closely related to sesal (Bromelia Sylvestris), perhaps even a variety of the same. The native name, “jxtle,” is possibly derived from the fact of their curiously flattened, spiky-edged leaves, resembling the dentated knives formed from volcanic stone (obsidian) possessed by the Aztecs, and termed by them “ iztli.”

Indians, a memorial of the Toltecs, who brought it with them upon their emigration from Mexico, where it was in vogue long before the arrival of the Spaniards.

Sesal cultivation yields an annual profit of 95%.

A mecate, equal to 576 square yards (varas), contains 64 plants, giving 64 lbs. of clear fibre valued at $3.84.

It costs $1.71 to obtain, leaving $2.13.

The harvesting commences 4-5 years after the first laying out of the plantation. It continues annually for 50-60 years.

In tropical countries, almost all huts have banana trees around.

The little labour required for their proper cultivation is quickly and amply repaid by their abundant fruitfulness.*

Under the existing circumstances however, this would not be favourable to the Philippines.

• The banana trees are well known to be among the most valuable of plants to mankind. In their unripe state they afford starch-flour; and when mature, they supply an agreeable and nutritious fruit, which, although partaken of freely, will produce neither unpleasantness nor any injurious after-effects. One of the best of the edible species bears fruit as early as five or six months after being planted, suckers in the meantime constantly sprouting from the roots, so that a continual fructification is going on, the labour of the growers merely being confined to the occasional cutting down of the old plants and to gathering in the fruit.

The broad leaves afford to other young plants the shade which is so requisite in tropical countries, and are employed in many useful ways about the house.

Many huts thank the banana trees surrounding it for protection from fires which can burn entire villages.

Bishop Pallegoix is a amiable white-haired, nonogenarian bishop. He has an excellent work: “Description du Royaume Thai ou Siam”. In I. 144, he says: “L’arbre à vernis qui est une espèce de bananier, et que les Simaios appellent órak,’ fournit ce beau vernis qu’on admire dans les petits meubles qn’on apporte de Chine.”

This is wrong. When I was in Bangkok, I called his attention to this curious statement.

He shook his head and said he could not have written it.

I showed him the very passage. He whispered to me: “Ma foi, j’ai dit une bêtise; j’en ai dit bien d’autres.”

as it does not pay to obtain bast from the genuine abaca plant as soon as it has borne fruit. The fibre of the edible banana might very well be used as material for paper-making, though obtaining it would cost more than the genuine bandála.

In the Report of the Council of the Society of Arts, London, May 11th, 1860, attention was called to a machine invented by F. Burke, of Montserrat, for obtaining fibre from banana and other endogenous plants.

While all the earlier machines worked the fibre parallelwise, this one operated obliquely on it. With this machine, 7-9% of fiber may be obtained from the banana.

The Tropical Fibre Company have sent these machines to Demerara, Java, etc to:

• spin the fibre of the edible banana
• use some portions of the plant as materials to make paper.

Proofs have already been brought forward of fibre obtained in this manner in Java, the value of which to the spinner has been reckoned at from £20 to £25.

It does not appear, however, that these promising experiments have led to any important results.

At least, the consular reports which have come to hand contain no information on the subject. In the obtaining of bandála in the Philippines this machine has not yet been used. Nor has it even been seen, though the English consul, in his latest report, complains that all the hitherto ingeniously constructed machines have proved virtually useless.

The bast of the edible banana continues still to be used in the Philippines, notwithstanding that the plants, instead of being grown, as in many parts of America, in large well-tended gardens, are here scattered around the huts.

But the forwarding of the raw material, the local transport, and the high freightage will always render this material too expensive for the European market (considering always its very ordinary quality)-£10 per ton at the very least, while “Sparto grass” (Lygieum spartum, Læffl.), which was imported some few years since in considerable quantities for paper-making, costs in London only £5 per ton.*

PAPER MATERIAL

The jute (Corchorus casularis) coffee-sacks supply another cheap paper material. These are used to make strong brown packing paper, as jute will not stand bleaching.

According to P. Symmonds, the US in recent years have largely used bamboo. The rind of the Adansonia digitata also yields an extremely good material. Paper made from New Zealand flax has superior toughness, eminently suited for “bill paper".

In the manufacture of paper, worn linen and cotton rags are the very best materials that can be employed, and make the best paper.

Moreover, they are generally to be had for the trouble of collecting them, after they have once covered the cost of their production in the form of clothing materials; when, through being frayed by repeated washings, they undergo a preparation which particularly adapts them to the purposes of paper-making.

The more paper-making progresses, the more are ligneous fibres brought forward, particularly wood and straw, which produce really good pastes ; all the raw materials being imported from a distance. That England takes so much sparto is easily explained by the fact that she has very little straw of her own, for most of the corn consumed by her is received from abroad in a granulated condition.

• In 1862, England took from Spain 156 tons ; 1863, 18,074 tons; 1866, 66,913 tons; 1868, 95,000 tons; and the import of rags fell from 24,000 tons in 1866 to 17,000 tons in 1868. In Algiers a large quantity of sparto (Alfa) grows, but the cost of transport is too expensive to admit of sending it to France.