34 USEFUL PLANTS OF GUAM. 
Don Francisco goes on to make the following suggestions: 
First, considering the impossibility of preventing the arrival of foreigners in these 
islands, they should be obliged to pay at least the established anchorage dues; second, 
industry and agriculture on the part of the natives should be fostered, obliging them, 
on their own account and for their own benefit, to engage in producing objects easy 
of exportation, such as dyewood, indigo, cotton, tortoise shell, mother-of-pearl, 
arrowroot, and béches de mer, and in the breeding of animals, the more extensive 
cultivation of land, and the production of wines, brandies, sugar, and other articles— 
all in accordance with the regulations of good government—which will not be hard 
to formulate according to the system in force in the Visayan Islands; third, the said 
freedom of trade will allow the natives to sell their goods, as will be seen; fourth, 
the royal treasury will continue to send half of the appropriation for the pay of the 
forces on the island in goods at prices as moderate as practicable; and fifth and last, 
if national or foreign vessels arrive with articles of commerce, they shall take away 
with them the equivalent of what they leave in the country in products of the island, 
and, if they do not wish the latter, they shall be sent away. 
He also suggests that the proceeds from the port dues be applied 
in part to the payment of premiums to persons who have most excelled 
in some branch of industry or agriculture or who have been of some 
benefit to the public. 
By these methods [says Villalobos@], sustained with constancy and intelligence 
and favored by the docility and good disposition which I observe in the inhabitants 
of these islands, I believe that the day will really come in which the Marianas 
will have much money, many goods; that they may without difficulty be self-sup- 
porting, like other provinces; that ships will concur, and that all amplitude desired 
will be given to trade. 
Villalobos did much to benefit the people of Guam. In his official 
letters to his chief he reports, among other things, the segregation 
of lepers and provision for their care and comfort; the appointment 
of hunters to supply the leper hospital with fresh meat by killing 
wild hogs and cattle; his efforts to encourage commerce. so that Guam 
may derive profit, like the Hawaiian Islands, from the visiting 
whalers; the vaccination of the natives as a protection against small- 
pox; the reorganization of the urban militia; proposed reforms in the 
administration of the college for the education of native children; 
efforts to promote the cultivation of coffee, ‘which article may be the 
wealth of this country;” the condition of agriculture on the island; 
the preparation of the large marsh east of Agafia for the cultivation 
of rice; the injuries to maize caused by rats and weevils, and the con- 
sequent restriction of its cultivation to amounts barely sufficient for 
the needs of each family; the substitution of taro and yams for maize, 
when the latter has been destroyed by hurricanes, and the use of 
plantains and bananas as food staples instead of bread: the cultivation 
of sweet potatoes for supplying visiting ships; the excellence of the 
pineapples and the use made of pineapple fiber; the fine quality of Guam 
«Letter book, January 18, 1830. 
