are split and employed for tying together the parts of house-frames, canoes, fences, carts, sledges, and agricultural implements, as well as for binding hemp bales and sugar sacks. Split rattan is also used in bed making and chair seating. Demand for it is steady and many natives earn a living by cutting, splitting and marketing it. RATTAN ABUNDANCE. The staple food of the common people is rice, and they are quite successful in raising it. In former years considerable quantities of rice were exported to China, but at present the crop is insufficient for the home consumption. There are more than twenty different kinds of paddy. They may be roughly divided into two classes, the lowland rice and the highland rice. The former grows on alluvial soil under water. The fields where it is raised are divided into small plots surrounded by mud banks for the better control of the water supply. The grain is sown on the seeding plot to sprout, and when it has reached proper height is transplanted to the flood fields. As a rule but one crop per year is obtained, the yield varying from fifty to a hundred fold. The highland rice is of inferior quality, but grows without irrigation. The yield is about half as much as the other, but two or three crops can be raised in a year. CRUDE METHODS OF The methods used in rice culture and harvest are of the crudest. The ground is prepared for the lowland rice by flooding it and working it with muck rakes drawn by carabaos. The young rice shoots are stuck in by hand and the ripe heads of grain are often cut one at a time with a small knife blade, though sickles are sometimes used. Threshing is usually accomplished under the feet of women or cattle, more rarely by means of wooden flails. The grain is freed from the husk by pounding in a wooden mortar and flat baskets are used for winnowing. Very rarely one finds simple home-made machinery for pounding or winnowing grain, but there is nothing of the sort in general use. The manufacture of hemp and of hemp-rope is partly native and partly Spanish. The natives had learned the virtues of hemp long before the Spanish discovery of the islands. They made an excellent rope, employing nearly all of the principles which are used to-day in that manufacture. Besides twisting the threads, the cords and the strands, they also braided them and with the braids in turn made strands by twisting and a second braiding. The braided ropes were often quite flat and were practically straps. They are still utilized as harness for their ponies and buffaloes and for rigging upon their primitive water cart. The same hempen straps are used for the making of sandals and rude rugs and for nearly every purpose to which the leather thong or strap is put by savage races. Although the native ropes are inferior to those made by Europeans or under European directions, they are strong, durable and extremely cheap, costing only a third to a fifth of the more finished product. At one time these native styles of cordage might be considered as part of the commercial industry of the country, but the exorbitant export duties and internal taxation crushed out the native enterprise. The commercial industry of hemp production, as well as that of tobacco, sugar, coffee and gutta percha, will be considered in the following chapter. They are the phases of industry in which native labor is employed, but which depend for their prosperity not on local trade, but upon intercourse with the rest of the world. The line to be drawn in this classification is a clear one and readily understood. Without an exception, the purely commercial industries are under the direction and management of Europeans, some of them Spanish colonists in the Philippines and others representing great commercial firms of France, Germany and England. CHAPTER XVIII. THE COMMERCIAL INDUSTRIES OF THE PHILIPPINES. The Land Where Our Ropes Come From-How Hemp is Grown-The Principal Hemp Ports of the Archipelago-Extracting the Fibre from the PlantWasteful Methods of the Natives-Sugar Land and the Crop It YieldsMethods of Extracting Sugar from Cane-Manila Tobacco and Cigars-When Tobacco Was a Government Monopoly-Value of the Export Trade-Great Cigar Factories of Manila-The Coffee of the Philippines-Gutta Percha in Mindanao-European Firms Control the Export Trade-How to Reach the Philippines-Inter-island Communication. T HE most notable and profitable industry of the Philippine islands, the one which is actually essential to the world's convenience, is the production of Manila hemp, from which our ropes are made. This archipelago has long furnished the whole world with its entire supply of the fiber. The only attempt to produce hemp outside of the Philippines which has met with any success whatsoever, is one recently made in North Borneo, but this has not been continued long enough to affect the industry in the Philippines. The product is something enormous. The average number of bales exported for the years 1888 to 1897 was 651,897, but the output has been steadily increasing and in 1897 it reached a total of 825,028 bales. Manila hemp, known in the Philippines as abaca, is the fiber of a wild plantain. Its plants so closely resemble those of the edible banana that only an expert can distinguish them. Abaca will not live on swampy land, yet it requires considerable moisture, so must be shaded by trees which can resist the sun. The best plants are grown at a moderate elevation, on hillsides from which only the smaller foresttrees have been cut. The best thus far grown has been raised in Leyte, Marinduque and the districts of Sorsogon and Gubat in Luzon. HEMP PORTS SOUTHERN ISLANDS Except Manila itself, the principal hemp ports are in the central and southern islands of the archipelago. Iloilo is one of some importance. The greatest, however, is Cebu, and others of large commerce in hemp are Catbalogan, on the island of Samar, and Tacloban, on the island of Leyte. Every port among those neighboring islands finds its commerce in the hemp industry. Surigao, at the northeastern extremity of Mindanao, is not a large port, but it ships some of the best hemp that comes into the Manila market and it is of consequent importance in the islands. The slender stem of the wild plantain is enveloped by overlapping, half-round petioles, which produce the fiber. In order to extract it the plant is cut and the leaf-stems are separated and allowed to wilt for a short time. Each is then drawn between a block of wood and a knife hinged to the block, and provided with a lever and treadle so that it can be firmly held down on the stem. By this means the pulp is scraped from the fiber, which is wound around a stick as fast as it is drawn from under the knife. The whole little machine is so absurdly simple, with its rough carving knife and rude levers, that it hardly seems to correspond with the elaborate transformation that takes place from the tall trees to the slender white fiber. One man can clean only twenty-five pounds of hemp a day. When it is remembered that the harvest for 1897 was more than 825,000 bales, weighing 240 pounds each, it seems the more remarkable that so rude an instrument should have such an important part to play. After being drawn from the leaves the hemp is next spread in the sun for at least five hours to dry, when it can be immediately baled. Most of the hemp presses are run by man power. HOW THE NATIVE LABORERS WORK. Abaca is usually propagated by transplanting the suckers that spring from its roots. It reaches maturity in three years from these cuttings and in four years from seed. It should be cut when it flowers, as fruiting weakens the fiber. There are no insect pests that injure the growing plant to any extent. It is necessary to employ native laborers and they must be closely watched, as they are inclined to allow the petioles to rot and to use serrated knives in drawing the |