First and foremost among the useful plants of the Philippines stands musa textilis, a species of plantain that grows wild in many of the islands and is the source of the well-known Manila hemp, the most valuable of all fibres for cordage. The native name for the plant is abacÁ. In appearance it is not easy to distinguish it from the plant of the same genus that yields us that useful and agreeable fruit, the banana. The only visible difference really is that the banana tree is taller and its leaves are of a lighter green. The most marked distinction is in the fruit, that of the abacÁ being small and unfit for eating.

Properly considered, the abacÁ, like all the plantains, is an herb, not a tree; that is, it bears flowers and fruit once only, then perishes. The root survives, however, and a new plant springs up. The abacÁ attains an average height of ten feet, though it sometimes grows much higher. Its favorite location is on hilly land, and it refuses to grow in swampy situations. I have often found it growing wild on mountain slopes of volcanic formation, where the little depth of soil scarcely gave it room to root.

The value of this plant lies in its leaves, the petioles, or leaf-stalks, containing a long and strong fibre, for which it is widely cultivated. Little attention is given to the plant during its three years of growth. At the end of that time it sends up a central stem, upon which flowers appear. Now comes the work of the cultivator. Fruit is not permitted to appear, the flower-stem being cut away and the leaf-stalks that surround it torn into strips five or six inches wide, their length being over six feet.

Bast, the name by which these strips are known, is made up of hemp-fibre and a soft pulpy substance enclosing it. The process of manufacture is a very simple one,—consisting in scraping this soft substance from the fibre. This work is done by the natives in a primitive fashion. Nevertheless, no one, so far, has been able to improve upon it.

The scraping instrument consists of a dull knife, which is attached by a hinge to a block of wood. To this is connected a treadle worked by the foot, by whose aid the operator scrapes the fresh leaf-strips under the knife, with the degree of force that may be thought necessary. The bast is drawn along between the knife and the block, forcing out the pulp, which remains on the side of the knife, while the fibre, as it is set free, is wound by the operator round a stick of wood.

Only one further process is necessary. The fibre in its fresh state is very moist, containing about fifty-six per cent. of water. To dispose of this, it is laid in the sun to dry and left for about five hours, when it is considered ready for use. All that remains to be done, then, is to prepare it for shipment, which is done by packing tightly in bales and binding with hoops of iron or rattan.

The method of cleaning the bast, as described, has long been practised by the islanders. Many attempts have been made to improve upon it, but with no shining success. In fact, the various machines that have been devised for the removal of the pulp usually have done more harm than good. A machine that seeks to clean the whole length of a strip of bast at once, is sure to break the fibre, which is not strong enough to bear the strain. In the machines a cylinder takes the place of the hand and the stick of the operator, and those cylinders, whether of steel or of glass, are always found to discolor the fibre, and thus reduce its marketable value. The only machine I know of that avoids this defect is the invention of Don Abelardo Cuesta, a Spaniard, brought out in 1886. This yielded excellent results, but required so many hands to run it that it did not pay. The result is, nearly all the fibre that is shipped is cleaned by the old native hand-process.

Hemp-growing is the least troublesome of the agricultural operations in the Philippines, and gives the best returns for the expense involved. In starting a plantation the colonist chooses forest land, clearing away the smaller growth, but leaving the large trees to shade the plants and the young shoots. Where the soil is virgin, each shoot occupies, at first, a space of ground thirty-six Spanish square feet in extent. When the original plant is felled, the suckers come up anywhere, growing spontaneously from the parent root, and yielding a much denser plantation.

The abacÁ can be raised from seed; in which case it requires four years to flower. Planters, however, generally transplant the six-months-suckers, which, as I have said, reach maturity in three years. Maturity, for commercial purposes, signifies the flowering stage. In no case is the plant allowed to bear fruit, because fruit-bearing weakens the outer fibre.

Ample capital is necessary for success in hemp-growing, inasmuch as three years or more must pass before any profit can be had. After that, the grower can depend upon an annual yield. But even then, when he is the owner of a flourishing plantation, he has serious difficulties to contend with. The amount of waste is enormous, some thirty per cent. of the fibre being lost through carelessness and negligence. The natives often cut the leaf-stalks before they reach maturity. In other cases, they fail to do so till they have rotted on the plant.

Inefficiency takes still other forms, but, despite this, there is abundant margin for gain, since no agricultural operation is conducted with less risk. The dense protecting forest-growth shields the plants from hurricanes, while the high land on which they grow is safe from inundation. Fire can make no headway among their green leaves and moist stems. Locusts will not touch the hemp plant, and beetles and other insects harm it but little. As the crop comes to maturity at successive periods, it can be leisurely gathered, from time to time, the year round. No ploughing is needed, and therefore there is no live-stock to be purchased, fed, and cared for. There is no expensive machinery, and no highly-priced machinists needed to run it. Weeding must be carefully attended to, but this is the work of the natives, and is done very cheaply. The enemies of the hemp planter are an occasional drought when his plants are in the ground, and the danger of fire to his dried bales before they reach their destination. His greatest annoyance must come from the steady thirty per cent. of what seems like unnecessary waste, due to the causes stated.

Work on an abacÁ estate is performed on the co-operative plan. The laborers are paid not in money but in kind, they receiving half the fibre they clean, while the other half goes to the owner of the estate. The workman, however, is not required to take the fibre for his pay, but receives, instead, its current cash value—if not cheated, which he frequently is. The law of the Philippines, however, is cheat for cheat, the native having become quite as tricky as his master. The value of the fibre depends upon its whiteness and its strength, and both are reduced by the indolence and dishonesty of the hands. My experience with the islanders is, I admit, that they are none too fond of work. A laborer on a hemp plantation, who finds himself pressed for money, is likely to take some method like the following to obtain it: he will seek an abacÁ plant, strip a few of its leaf-stalks, and leave them exposed to the rain and the air. As a result, the bast grows soft and rotten, and is more easily cleaned, but the fibre is weakened and discolored. In cleaning it, he uses a toothed knife,—a form forbidden by the trade, since it adds to the discoloration. As the fibre is sold by weight, the dishonest manipulator is careful to leave some of the pulp to dry upon it and so increase the number of pounds. Carrying his bundle of coarse, partly-cleaned, discolored, and weak fibre, he seeks the dealer at night, that he may be deceived as to the color of the fibre. These tricks are well known to the planter, his manager, and to the acopiadores, or dealers at large, and do not often succeed.

The plantation-owners make every effort to force the natives to use knives without teeth, in order that the fibre may be fine, perfectly clean, and white. The Filipino, though, if not closely watched, persists in using his serrated knife, because if he uses one with a smooth edge he loses in weight. He is too ignorant to perceive that the fibre properly treated is of higher value. It is quite possible, as is often claimed, that there is a difference in plants, some giving a whiter fibre than others. But it is generally conceded that if the natives would cut the plant only at maturity, cleanse the fibre under a toothless knife the same day, place the strips in a clean place, and sun-dry at once, the waste would be materially lessened, and there would be little third-class matter.

In other words, what the hemp-planter needs are honest, reliable hands and an efficient manager.

On some of the islands inspectors are appointed by the Governor, whose duty it is to travel about from place to place, intimidating hemp-laborers in the name of the law. But so far their efforts seem to have met with but little success, the plantations owned by foreigners being large, remote, and difficult to reach; they are, indeed, nearly always on the sides of mountains. In the extraction of the fibre the natives work in couples: one man strips the bast, another draws it under the knife. A fair week’s work for the two, including selection and felling of plants, and cleansing and drying of bast, is 2 ?1/7? piculs—about 300 pounds. First-quality fibre brings in Manila $8.50 a picul, and third-quality $7.25; but while the former price remains firm, the latter falls as the poor quality increases. Nevertheless, as may be seen, the native gets good wages even for a poor quality of hemp.

The work of the laborers is by no means confined to treating the fibre, they being expected to devote some time every day to weeding the plants, and clearing out brushwood. This is part of their regular work and is not paid for extra. The baling of the fibre is done by means of a press, at which men and boys work, their rate of payment varying from 12½ to 50 cents a day. Transportation from the plantations to the shipping points, such as Manila and CebÚ, is also to be considered in estimating the outlay of the planter.

I have not yet told all the tricks of the natives. They cheat also in the planting, by not making deep enough holes for setting out the shoots. In consequence, planters no longer pay at once for shoots and labor, as formerly, but reserve payment for three years, or until full growth is attained. Then $10 are paid for each hundred of live plants.

In addition to the large planters, many of the Filipinos produce bast in a small way, selling it to Chinese dealers. Or a Chinaman may, for a petty sum, gain the right to work a native plantation for a fixed term of years. With but one thought in mind—that of immediate gain—he strips the plants in their immature stage, producing a white but weak fibre, and returns the plantation to its owner ruined for the time being. The Chinese are, in consequence, held under suspicion, and their bast is severely inspected before purchase.

In fact, the whole process of hemp-production, from the proprietor down to the lowest laborer, seems permeated with fraud; and between efforts to cheat on the one hand, and efforts to escape being cheated on the other, life on a hemp plantation is not a state of beatitude.

Manila hemp never fails of a market, particularly in the United States, where it is most largely used. No other fibre known is so valuable for cordage, and the production might be greatly increased without overstocking the market. To the various frauds practised in its production may be added another employed by the manufacturers of cordage: the free adulteration of the pure Philippine fibre by the admixture of New Zealand flax and Russian hemp.

The cultivation of the plant has been attempted outside the Philippines, but with no satisfactory result. AbacÁ planting, it is true, was tried successfully in the botanical gardens at Saigon, Cochin China, but the experiment was abandoned, for some reason unexplained. AbacÁ has also been planted in British India, and flourished as well there as at Saigon, but the effort to produce hemp from it failed through ignorance of the proper method of the drawing of the fibre.

The mode of extraction tried was that practised with the ordinary hemp of India, excepting that the stems were first passed through a sugar-cane mill, to get rid of the sap. By this means fifty per cent. of the whole weight was squeezed out; the stems were then immersed in water and left to rot for ten or more days; afterward they were washed by hand and dried in the sun. Less than two pounds of fibre were thus gained from one hundred pounds of stems, and this bad in color and lacking in strength.

This method is very unlike that employed in the Philippines, and the natives of the islands need have no fear of Indian competition under such conditions. The fibre will not bear the pressure of cylinders without damage in color, while the soaking of the stems is sure to weaken it. The experiments in India failed to distinguish between the Indian hemp and Manila hemp plants, which belong to different families, and require radically different treatment.

The islands of Leyte and Marinduque, and certain districts in the large island of Luzon yield the finest quality of hemp. The province of Albay, the leading hemp-district of Luzon, cannot be surpassed in quantity and quality of yield, its annual hemp-crop averaging about 20,000 tons. Before 1825 the demand was little, and the hemp-yield insignificant. Since then, the growing demand has greatly developed the culture, the crop of 1840 being about 8,500 tons, in 1880 about 50,000 tons. It has been steadily on the increase.

The United States receives the greatest proportion of this product, nearly all the remainder going to Great Britain and her Australian colonies. Manila is the principal port of shipment: the bales are sent thither from the plantations.

For those that desire statistics, I may repeat the statement made to me in person by an Albay planter. The plantation of this gentleman, in which he had invested a capital of $60,000, embraced 1800 acres, planted at the time of purchase with shoots of two years’ growth, and therefore needing one year more before cutting. There was a store-house on the estate capable of holding 5000 piculs, or 695,000 pounds of hemp (a picul is 139 pounds). The purchase also included a bale-press and shed, a plot prepared for sun-drying, two horses, and a vehicle.

The working expenses of this plantation, including the various items of salaries to overseers, clerks, and storekeepers, wages to natives, living and traveling expenses of overseer, fire insurance, office expenses, freight to Manila, loading, commission, storage, and minor items, were $10,000. In this were included some loss by stealing, and several hundred dollars loss by waste.

In one year the planter received in Manila $27,000 for his dried bales of hemp-fibre, making a net profit of thirty per cent. on invested capital. It must be remembered, however, that in Albay province the conditions for the investor in abacÁ-planting are of the best. Equal results cannot be expected elsewhere.

Manila hemp is principally used in the manufacture of mats, sail cloth, and cordage. Out of the old ropes the well-known stout brown wrapping-paper is made—the Manila paper of commerce. In Paris the imported hemp-fibre is used in the manufacture of carpets, tapestry, net-work, hammocks; and even in the making of bonnets.

The natives obtain small quantities of very fine hemp-fibre from the carefully-selected edges of the petiole, or leaf-stalk, and from this they weave an exquisite, fine, silky material, suitable for gowns. This fibre is worth twice as much as first-class cordage hemp. The difficulties with the weave lie in the fragility, and, consequently, the frequent breakages of the thread; hence the expense of the material. On one of the islands a fabric is made from fine hemp and pine-leaf fibre. This the natives endeavor to sell to foreigners for pure piÑa, which is as fine and soft as Bengal muslin. The fraud is detected by the lack of flexibility in the material, it having a horse-hair stiffness. Any one that has ever touched a soft, silky, pine-leaf fibre handkerchief, for instance, would easily distinguish the difference.

Lastly, in enumerating the valuable qualities of manila hemp, I may state that the poorer classes of the natives of the Philippine Islands wear clothes that they manufacture from the ordinary fibre; and that even the bags in which the fresh coffee-beans are sent from the islands to foreign markets are made from the same material.

I may say, in concluding this subject, that hemp is the most important article of Philippine product, and that its production is capable of being greatly increased. The official documents that I have examined in Manila show that within the last decade the United States has received fully forty per cent. of all the hemp-product of the islands. In the ten years previous to 1898 a single firm in Boston bought 79,000 tons of hemp, paying for it an average price of 3 cents a pound in the Manila market. During this period the total export of hemp was 914,100 tons. The import to the United States during the same time averaged in value $2,400,000 a year. A liberal and progressive administration will soon increase this tenfold.