The land is the mainstay of the Philippines, and farming is the native occupation. Manufacture is a diversion to which the natives do not take kindly. The only industrial art that has made any progress is the rolling of tobacco into cigars and cigarettes. Many thousands of people are engaged in this occupation at Manila, but, otherwise, manufacture is almost at a standstill. A little cordage is made; some straw or split-bamboo hats are fashioned and shipped; in some provinces split-cane and Neto hats and straw mats are made. Iloilo yields a rough cloth,—sinamay, made from selected hemp fibre. PiÑa muslin, made of pure pine-leaf fibre, and husi, of mixed pine-leaf and hemp, are fabricated. Those, with a few other articles, make up the native manufactured products. They do not occupy the attention of the people, the greater part of the population getting their livelihood from the fields.

Plantation life is the industrial unit of the islands. The soil is divided up into plantations, large and small, according to the capital and enterprise of the planter. As a rule, the planters are of the Malay race, and the work of the fields is done by other Malays, as many as five or six hundred being employed on large plantations. The laborers live in little bamboo houses, the planters furnishing them both food and clothing. The food consists of rice and fish,—very cheap provender in the Philippines,—and the clothing is of a primitive character, that costs little. Yet, at the end of the season, the laborer has usually exhausted his wages and may be in debt to the planter.

On the other hand, though the planter holds the land, he is generally obliged to borrow the capital to work it. This he obtains from a middleman, who stands between him and the great merchants, the exporters of the island-produce. The middlemen are generally mestizos. They contract for the crop in advance, on behalf of the rich exporters, from whom they obtain the money lent to the planters. This capital is lent at an interest-rate of from ten to twelve per cent. They, in turn, lend it to the planters at a considerable advance,—say, twenty to thirty, and often as much as fifty, per cent. I have heard of even one hundred per cent. being demanded. Thus the planter is ground between the upper and nether millstone,—the exporter and the middlemen. They alone make any money, the producer being normally in debt, as his laborers are likewise to him.

The products of the islands are various, including maize, rice, cotton, coffee, tobacco, sugar-cane, the cocoanut, the abacÁ, or manila hemp plant, and a large number of dye-woods, medicinal, and other useful plants, such as ebony, sapan-wood, tamarind, bamboo, numerous palms, fibrous plants, etc. But I am now concerned only with the agricultural products, and shall therefore confine this chapter to a consideration of two of the more important—rice and sugar.

In former years, the few that faced the obstacles to agriculture in an unworked country succeeded in obtaining fair returns in wealth from the cultivation of the main staples. But those palmy days exist no longer: prices have declined to one-third their former level, while the wages of the laborers have risen. The buffalo, the indispensable aid of the farmer, could then be obtained for one-fifth its present cost, on account of the limited demand. Trade in those days was much less than at present, but the native producers and traders occupied a sounder position, and comfort existed, where penury now prevails.

Of late years, hundreds have gone into agriculture with much too little capital. They hold the land, but frequently without the deeds to show for it. Hence, their property is not negotiable, and they are thrown into the hands of the money-lender, who squeezes the life-blood from the unlucky planter. As agriculture yields less than thirty per cent., and this or more has to be paid in interest on capital, the contract is likely to end in the money-lender getting the land. Few of the planters succeed in saving their estate and throwing off their load of debt.

The species of sugar-cane cultivated in the Philippines (saccharum violaceum) differs from that grown in the west, but it is the same as that found throughout Malaysia and Polynesia generally. The culture and manufacture are conducted in a very slovenly fashion, consequently the sugar produced is coarse of grain and poor in quality. The yield, however, is large, and leaves, after the demands of the islands are supplied, some 250,000 tons annually for export. With proper cultivation this could be very much increased and its quality greatly improved.

The culture of the cane extends through the islands of Negros, Panay, CebÚ, Luzon, and, in some measure, throughout the entire Archipelago. The yellow variety is grown in Pampanga (Luzon), the purple in Panay and Negros. The price of cane-land varies considerably, according to its facilities for drainage, transportation, and the like. Thus, in the province of Bulacan, adjoining Manila, whose soil has been exhausted by long cultivation,—the yield being but 20 tons per acre,—land is held at the high figure of $115 per acre. In the more distant province of Pampanga, land can be had for $75, though the yield per acre is 30 tons. Nueva Eciji, still farther away, and presenting difficulties of transportation, yields 35 tons to the acre, yet the land-price is little over $30. The development of an extensive railroad-system would change all this.

The high price of land in Bulacan is due mainly to sentimental considerations. The cane plantations there were laid out centuries ago, and have been held in the same families for many generations. In consequence, the natives cling to them with the strength of hereditary affection, and will part with the family estates only for fancy prices. Nature has made the soil of the Philippines so wonderfully rich and fertile, that artificial fertilizers are never employed, the land being expected, year after year, and century after century, to do its duty and yield its full return. In view of these considerations, it need hardly be said that American capital and enterprise would make a remarkable change in the land.

The finest sugar-cane region is the island of Negros, in the Visaya district. This island is about equal to Porto Rico in size. The culture of the cane began there about 1850, in which year the crop was 625 tons. Not more than half its area is cultivated, from lack of capital, but it now sends to the port of Iloilo over 80,000 tons of sugar for exportation. Uncleared sugar-land there is held at $35 per acre, cleared land at $70, the average yield being estimated at 40 tons per acre on new, and 30 tons on old, estates. But the latter give sugar of much higher grade, and need less labor in handling, so that there is no loss in the value of the crop.

The process of manufacture differs in the north and the south. In Negros the cane-juice is evaporated to that point of concentration in which the molasses is incorporated with the grain. Then the liquid is placed in wooden troughs of about eight by four feet in size, and stirred with shovels until cooled sufficiently not to form a solid mass. When cold, the lumps are pounded and broken up, and the whole is packed in grass-bags for shipment. In the north the process is carried further, efforts being made to get rid of the molasses. When the boiled mass has set, the pots containing it are put over pots into which the molasses drains. If left thus for six months, twenty per cent. of the original weight will drain off. The molasses is sold to distillers to make alcohol, and there is some demand for it to mix with water for horses.

The Iloilo sugar generally comes to the United States, being shipped in the raw state, to be refined there. In Manila the manufacture of sugar has been more developed, and a quantity of crystal grain is produced there for export to Spain. The old method of grinding the cane, introduced by the Chinese, consists in the use of two rough vertical cutting mills,—cylinders of wood being used in the south; of stone in the north. These are fitted with wooden teeth, between which the grain is crushed. Mills of this primitive kind are still in use in parts of the country, but are being superseded by iron rollers sent from England, and, like the former, revolved by buffaloes. Steam mills are also being introduced. In Negros, where foreign influence is predominant, nearly all the mills are of European make.

It may be said, further, in this connection, that the sugar-estates are generally small, not a dozen in the country yielding more than 1,000 tons of raw sugar a year. One that yields 500 tons is declared large. And the lack of transportation, too, greatly checks enterprise. In Negros there are no canals or railroads to the coast, and the annual crop needs to be painfully hauled in buffalo carts, to be loaded on schooners, for carriage to the port of Iloilo. Buffaloes on this island, five years old, bring $30. In Luzon they can be bought for half that price. The wages paid to laborers average about one and a half dollars weekly. But, in estimating the comparative comfort to be derived from this, we must consider the low price of food and clothing, and the primitive habits of the islanders.

The highest table-lands are most suitable for cane-planting, good drainage being a necessity of the situation. The shoots are planted in February, and the cane is cut in the following December or January. In the West Indies the canes are planted widely, and the ratoons, or root-stocks, last from five to twenty years, sending up new shoots annually. In the Philippines, however, the planting is renewed annually, the canes being set much closer. After cutting, the milling should be done in ten weeks, delay causing much loss in sugar. The whole process of milling and planting should be completed by the middle of March, the remainder of the year being left to the growth and culture of the crop.

In the north the co-operative principle of labor is largely employed, each tenant being provided with the necessary buffaloes and implements, and attending to the cane as if it were his own. He provides the hands for cane-crushing and sugar-making, while the land-owner supplies other necessaries, and has to take the risk of typhoons, droughts, locusts, and the like. The tenants receive, as their share, from a third to a half of the crop, according to the bargain made. Nevertheless, they are generally in debt to the owner and are looked upon as his servants.

In the south the plantations are worked on the wage system. Here great vigilance is needed to keep the men properly to their tasks, overseers being employed, who have an interest in the crop. The overseer in some instances provides his own capital, and receives two-thirds of the yield as his share. In 1877 a British company, with large capital, organized, to buy the cane-juice and to extract from it highly-refined sugar. Every preparation was made, but from the first the enterprise was a failure, and the concern wound up in 1880, the stockholders suffering severely for their faith. Yet fortunes have been made in Philippine sugar, and until 1883 the crop could usually be depended on to pay a good profit to the capitalist and leave something for the borrower. The custom introduced in Europe, in 1884, of paying subsidies to the beet-root cultivator, proved ruinous to the islanders, and interest on capital is now the only return to be looked for.

Turning now from the sugar to the rice crop, I may say that it is the staple food of the people, the crop upon which the very existence of the people depends. It is grown in every province, rice-cultivation being the only branch of agriculture that the people thoroughly understand, and into which they enter with the zest of evident enjoyment. Rice, a native plant of the East, has from time immemorial been the leading food-product of all the nations of Eastern Asia. The wild plant, from which all the cultivated varieties have been derived, is still plentiful in the marshy, tropical countries of southern Asia and northern Australia; while the people of India, China, and the islands of the ocean live very largely on this nutritive grain. It is known by as many as 1,300 different local names, and it is said that Bengal alone has displayed 4,000 distinct forms of rice. These differences are in color, shape, and size, and may be all referred to a few well-marked varieties of Oryza sativa, the rice plant. In India and the Philippines rice in the husk is called paddy, and this word comes constantly into play in speaking of the cultivation of the plant.

Formerly, rice was the main crop of the Philippines; a considerable quantity being exported. Twenty years ago Sual was an important port for the shipment of rice to China. It has now declined to an insignificant village. In fact, the extension of sugar culture has so reduced that of rice, that not enough is now produced for use, and large quantities are imported from Siam, Burmah, and China. Pangasinan is still a large rice-growing province, but all its product is consumed within the country. Sugar is a much better-paying crop, its minimum profit being equal to the maximum profit on rice. Rice-planting, in fact, is not profitable, and few carry it on largely; yet, inasmuch as it is necessary for the subsistence of the populace, some degree of attention compels its culture.

There are over twenty different kinds of rice-paddy grown in the Philippines. These constitute two groups,—the highland rice, grown in localities where inundation cannot be used, and the lowland, with which inundation is easy. The latter, known as Macan, is of much the finer quality, the most esteemed variety being that of white grain. Paga, or highland rice, is in large proportion of red grain. Its return is but half that of the Macan rice, but only one crop of the latter can be grown annually, while usually three crops of Paga rice are raised. One difficulty in Paga rice-cultivation is the presence of a fly that sucks the flower and prevents seeding. These the planters whisk off morning and evening with a bunch of straw, tied to the end of a stick.

The Macan grain is sown in June, in a plot set aside for seeding, and saturated with water until it is a mass of mud. Here in six weeks the plants grow to the height of a foot. They are then pulled up by the roots and transplanted in the flooded fields, in which the final growth is to be attained. Around these fields banks of earth are raised to prevent the water from flowing off. The men raise and separate the plants, and the women set them out again, one plant at a time, wading through the soft mud, in which they often sink to the knees. The process seems a tedious one, but I have often been surprised to see the rapidity with which the natives perform it. It is a process in which they are thoroughly trained, and at which they are remarkably quick.

Four months more are needed for the ripening of the grain, during which the fields are kept clear of weeds, the natives wading back and forth through the mud in their task. After cutting and heaping, the paddy is made into stacks. In six weeks more the grain is separated from the straw by treading or by the use of the flail, or by causing ponies to trot over it. It may be said that there is nothing in nature more beautiful than a valley of green ripening rice in the midst of verdant hills. In the flood of rich color beneath my eyes, I have gazed upon such a scene with inexpressible delight.

No rice-husking, winnowing or pearling-machines are in use in the Philippines other than some small ones for domestic use. The great number of kinds of rice-paddy hinders their use on a large scale, since the mill adapted to one field would not clean the crop of another. The grain is generally husked in a large hard-wood mortar, where it is beaten with a pestle, several men and women at times working over one mortar. There is also in use a primitive wooden mill worked by buffaloes. In this a series of pins engage with each other, causing a column to lift and fall, thereby serving as a pestle as it falls. Steam and water-power have recently been brought into use in some localities.

It is said that one quinon (about seven acres) of land will yield from 250 to 300 cavans (about 96 pounds each) of rice, but the yield could be greatly increased if a system of irrigation were generally in use. At present, the dependence is largely on the rains. The yield from seed varies from 40 to 100 grains of crop to one seed, 50 grains being a good average. A family of five persons will consume about 250 pounds of rice per month. It is used in almost every native dish, and takes the place of bread. The paddy, or unhulled rice, is to feed horses, cattle, and fowls.

It may be said in conclusion, that the rice and sugar planters have many insect enemies to contend against. One of the worst is the locust, which makes its appearance at times in overwhelming multitudes, and whose ravages I have elsewhere described. In some degree it replaces the food it destroys, the natives cooking and eating their foes, and in some districts, looking upon them as a luxury whose coming is worth praying for.

The average annual production of rice is a million and a half piculs, and almost a million piculs are imported.