AMERICAN FORESTRY 



Typical Filipino Houses. 



showing the mixed construction of boards and bamboo with nipa palm thatch. the better houses have 

 iron roofs .\nd are built of wood throughout. the poorer ones are constructed chiefly of p.a.lm 



leaves or grass and bamboo. 



varnish. The damar of commerce is a 

 fossil gum, dug from the earth, but the 

 trees which produce it exist in abundance 

 today and are steadily sending their 

 flow of gum into the ground for the 

 possible benefit of future generations. 



Extensive mangrove swamps lining 

 many of the more sheltered shores for 

 long distances prodtice the best of fire 

 wood and good tan bark. \"aluable 

 orchids are abundant in many of the 

 damper forests. 



The nuts of the lumbang tree are rich 

 in a valuable drying oil, utilizable in 

 mixing paints and varnishes, and pili 

 nuts have now become an article of 

 commerce and are beginning to find 

 their way to the tables of the people of 

 the United States. I know of no other 

 nuts which, when fresh and properly 

 roasted, are so delicious or so tender. 



In view of the indifference which we 



ourselves have shown towards the con- 

 servation of our own forest resources in 

 the immediate past we should not 

 wonder that the Filipinos, by which 

 term I designate the Christianized- 

 civilized residents of the archipelago, 

 should still be utterly indifferent to the 

 preservation of their forests as a per- 

 manent source of wealth. Much less 

 would a similar attitude on the part of 

 most of the wild tribes aftord ground for 

 surprise, and it is indeed extraordinary 

 that two of the latter peoples, the 

 Lepanto Igorots and the Bontoc Igorots, 

 should have been the only inhabitants 

 of the archipelago to appreciate the 

 importance of conserving their forests 

 and should have promulgated and 

 enforced rules to accomplish this result, 

 yet such is the case. 



On my first trip to Cay an, Tadian and 

 Bagnin in Lepanto I was striick by the 



