PHILIPPINE RICE 
By A. H. WELLS, F. AGCAOILI, and R. T. FELICIANO 
Of the Bureau of Science, Manila 
Although rice has constituted the chief staple food of the in- 
habitants of the Philippine Islands for centuries, very little at- 
tention and study have been devoted to it, so that the 36,500,000 
cavans of palay produced during 1920 might well be regarded 
as the result of the bounteousness of the soil rather than the 
product of the efforts of the farmers. However, the peculiar 
attitude of scientific men and farmers and their apathy toward 
its study are not confined to the Philippines, but are found in 
other oriental rice-producing countries as well. This, in part, 
is responsible for the prevalence of existing primitive methods 
of rice culture in the Islands; no great use is as yet made of 
modern implements, fertilizers, and seed selection. Very little 
attention has been paid to the study of the chemical composition 
of the kernels, the leaves, the stems, and the roots at various 
stages of maturity to determine the food value at such different 
stages, both to men and to domestic animals, and the relations 
of the variation of these chemical constituents to irrigation, 
fertilizers, climatic conditions, etc. 
The present paper is simply a compilation of the analyses of 
the kernels of different varieties of rice received in the Bureau 
of Science from time to time, and is offered in the hope that it 
may serve to indicate slightly the more important bearings and 
relations of chemical research to scientific farming. 
Of the many varieties of Philippine rice submitted by the 
Bureau of Agriculture for phosphorus determination, about 
twenty-three have been also subjected to a general analysis of 
percentage of moisture, of ether extract, of protein, of crude 
fiber, and of carbohydrates and starch. For several years these 
samples have been kept under close observation by the Bureau 
of Agriculture for variety tests, and in cultivating them efforts 
have been directed toward making conditions of growth as 
nearly uniform as possible.* 
Camus, José S., Rice in the Philippines, Bull. P. I, Bur. Agr. 37 (1921). 
358 
