For the rope-maker the raw material _par excellence_ is the so-called “Manila hemp.” Strictly speaking this is not a hemp at all, being a fiber obtained from the wild banana plant of the Philippine Islands. The botanists tell us to call this plant _Musa Textilis_, but the Filipino, who ought to know, calls both the plant and its fiber “Abacá.” The Philippines have a monopoly of this very important plant, as it has never been successfully cultivated elsewhere. So it will be seen at the start that the user of Manila hemp is dependent entirely upon our foreign possessions in the far East for his supply. Like most monopolists, the Filipino is not particularly susceptible to the wishes of his customers, and the procuring of hemp produced and prepared in the way to make it most valuable for rope-making is attended with some difficulty. The Abacá is cultivated by setting out shoots of the plant after a suitable tract of land has been cleared. When the field has had proper cultivation for a period of two or three years some of the plants will be ready to cut. They will then be tree-like in shape, and from fifteen to twenty-five feet in height. The stalk, some fifteen feet long, and a foot or more in diameter, is composed of the separate leaf stems growing compactly together in overlapping layers. The fiber is contained in the outer bark of these leaf stems, their inner portions being of a soft, pulpy nature. After the stalk is cut the native peels off strips of this fibrous bark, and after stripping the outer layer of stems, scrapes off its remaining pulp and proceeds to strip the next inner layer. This process is kept up through all the successive layers. The fiber from the inner layers of stems is finer and whiter than that from the outside. [Illustration: PHILIPPINE HEMP CART] The fibrous strips are then cleaned by drawing them under a knife hinged over a block of wood. This scraping frees the fibers from the surrounding pulp. The quality of the hemp depends very much upon the thoroughness with which this cleaning is done. By using a smooth-edged knife and putting considerable pressure upon it during the operation, a fiber is secured of high strength and good color. However, this means strenuous work on the part of the operator, and our brown fellow-citizen, like many of his white brethren, is averse to tiring his back; consequently the bulk of the fiber put upon the market is cleaned under knives with rough edges and loosely held against the material. This makes the workman’s task easier and enables him to turn out a larger product, but of an inferior quality. Hence one of the worries of the manufacturer of high-grade cordage. [Illustration: “STRENUOUS WORK”] This, briefly, is the way Manila hemp is extracted from its parent stalk. A fortune awaits anyone who will perfect machinery capable of superseding these antiquated hand methods.