It has been said that the prosperity of any nation depends largely upon its agriculture. The soil in the Philippines is very rich. The chief product, which the natives spend the most time upon, is rice; and even that is grown, one almost might say, without any care, especially after seeing the way the Japanese till their rice. They sow the rice broadcast in little square places of about half an acre which is partly filled with water. When this has grown eight or ten inches high they transplant it into other patches which have been previously scratched over with a rude one-handled plow that often has for a point only a piece of an old tin can or a straggly root, and into this prepared bit of land they open the dyke and let in the water; that is all that is necessary until the harvesting. They have a great pest, the langousta or grasshopper, and they are obliged, when these insects fly over a section of the country, to scare them away by any means in their power, which is usually by running about through the rice fields waving a red rag.

As I have said before they gather these pests and eat them. I have seen bushels of fried langousta for sale in the markets. When they gather the rice harvest, it is carried to some nearby store room, usually in the lower part of the house in which they live. Then comes the threshing, which is done with old-fashioned mills, by pounding with a wooden mallet, or by rubbing between two large pieces of wood. Then they winnow it, holding it up by the peck or half bushel to let the wind blow the hulls off, and dry it by placing it on mats of woven bamboo. I saw tons of rice prepared in this way by the side of the road near where I lived. This being their staple, the food for man and beast, one can form some idea of the vast quantities that are needed. There was a famine while I was there and the U. S. government was obliged to supply the natives with rice for seed and food.

There is no grass grown except a sort of swamp grass. The rice cut when it is green is used in the place of grass. It is never dried, as it grows the year round. One can look out any day and see rows of small bundles of this rice paddy laid by the road side for sale or carried by the natives on bamboo poles, a bundle before and one behind to balance. It was astonishing to see these small men and boys struggling under the weight of their “loads of hay.” None of the American horses cared for it; their hay and grain had to be stacked up along the wharf and guarded. It would be of little use, however, to the natives as they know nothing about the use of our products.

If there was any wheat grown in the islands, we never heard of it, and judging from the way in which flour was sold in their markets at ten cents for a small cornucopia that would hold about a gill, it was probably brought from either Australia or America.

They have a camote, something like a sweet potato. Although it is watery and stringy it does very well and is called a good vegetable. They raise inferior tomatoes and very inferior garlic. It was a matter of great curiosity to the natives to see an American plow that was placed on exhibition at the British store. I am sure when they can take some of our good agricultural implements and turn the rich soil over and work it, even in a poor way, the results will be beyond anything we could produce here in the United States.

Their cane sugar is of fine quality, almost equal to our maple sugar. They plant the seed in a careless way and tend it in the most slovenly manner imaginable, and yet, they get immense crops. One man, who put in a crop near where some soldiers were encamped in order to have their protection, told us that he sold the product from this small stretch of ground of not more than five or six acres for ten thousand dollars.

The natives so disliked to work that nearly every one who employed men kept for them a gaming table and the inevitable fighting cocks; as long as they can earn a little money to gamble that is all they care for; houses, lands, and families are not considered. Nearly all the sugar mills had been burned in our neighborhood, but I know from the way they do everything else that they must have used the very crudest kind of boiling apparatus. The sugar seemed reasonably clean to look at, but when boiled the sediment was anything but clean. With our evaporating machines and with care to get the most out of the crop, the profit will be enormous. Often we would buy the cane in the markets, peel off the outside and chew the pith to get the sweet juice.

They raise vast quantities of cocoa, as indifferently cared for as everything else, also a small flat bean, but it has a bitter taste.

The largest crop of all is the hemp crop which grows, seemingly, without any cultivation. This hemp when growing looks something like the banana tree. They cut it down and divide it into lengths as long as possible and then prepare the wood or fiber by shaving it on iron teeth.

They are expert in this industry, in making it fine and in tying it, often times, in lengths of not more than two or three inches. They give a very dextrous turn of the hand and the finest of these threads are used in some of the fabrics which they weave. I often wondered how they could prepare these delicate, strong, linen-like threads that are as fine as gossamer.

A man who had cotton mills in Massachusetts visited places where the hemp is prepared and the looms where it is woven. He said he had never known anything so wonderful as the deft manner in which these people worked out the little skeins from an intricate mass of tangled webs.

One of the curiosities of the world’s fair at St. Louis will be this tying and weaving of hemp. Then a still greater curiosity will be the making of pine-apple fiber. This manufacture has been sadly neglected and crippled by the war and its devastations. They have learned to mix in other fibers because of the scarcity of the pine-apple. I did not see this prepared at all; only secured with difficulty some of the good cloth. It is considered by the natives their very best and finest fabric. They spend much time on its embroidery and their exquisite work astonishes the finest lace makers.

The field corn which I saw was of such an inferior grade that it never occurred to me to try it; indeed, they do not bring it to market until it is out of the milk.

On my return home I planted a few kernels as an experiment. There never was a more insignificant looking stalk of corn in our garden. With misgivings we made trial of the scrubby looking ears. To our surprise it was the best we ever had on our table. It seemed too good to be true. I gave several messes to my friends and this year am hoping to give pleasure to many others. I denied myself the delicious product that many might have seed for this spring.