BY THE REV. J. E. TENISON-WOODS, F.G.S., &C. 797 



and the natives scarcely use any other for sewing purposes. It is 

 very tough. Tlie hner portions of the fibre are used for weaving. 

 A very serviceable and rather fine and glossy material is made 

 from it, of rich golden colour and something like silk. 



Abaca may be said to be, next to tobacco, the most important 

 product of the Philippines. It is far more important than cotton. 

 The plant grows to about fourteen feet high, producing a fruit 

 which is quite uneatable. It grows with much rapidity. Many 

 varieties are known, according to the kind of fibre which they 

 l)roduce, and each has a special name. At the end of three years, 

 when the top blackens and bends, the outward bark is stripped off. 

 It is cut in strips, soaked and beaten till the fibres are thoroughly 

 separated, and then it is placed in the sun, taking care that it 

 does not get mouldy. When dried it is AVashed again, and then 

 dried again and gathered into bundles, as soon as all the foliaceovis 

 portions have been detached. It is propagated by suckers, which 

 spring up at the roots of the old plant, and planted moderately 

 closely, so that 5,000 square yards will grow 1,000 plants. When 

 the plant is mature the bark is stripped every month, until the 

 plant is five or six years old, when it dies. 



It is not known when this culture and manufacture came to be 

 introduced in the Philippines. Pigafetta curiously makes no 

 mention of it, though he does mention the banana fruit and cotton. 

 Dampier resided in Mindanao for six months in 1786, but he 

 confounds the edible banana with that from which the hemp is 

 obtained. He says: " As the fruit of this tree is of great use for 

 food, so is the body no less serviceable to make cloths, but this I 

 never knew till I came to this island. . . . When the fruit 

 is ripe they cut it down close by the ground, if they intend to 

 make cloth with it. One blow with a macheat or long knife will 

 sti'ike it asunder : then they cut off the top, leaving the trunk 

 eight or ten feet long, stx'ipping off the outer rind, which is thickest 

 towards the lower end. Having stripped two or three of these 

 rinds, the trunk becomes in a manner all of one bigness, and of 

 whitish colour. Then they split the trunk in the middle, which 

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