18 LETTERS ON AGRICULTURE. 



The Manila hemp industry is still a monopoly, although the plant 

 grows well in other tropical regions, and could be easily cultivated in 

 the Straits Settlements, according to Dr. Ridley of the Botanic Gar- 

 dens in Singapore. According to information furnished by one of the 

 largest hemp exporters in Manila, the methods of culture are those 

 practiced with any semiwild plant, it being grown over a large area 

 of forest land, especially in the regions about Albay. The problem of 

 increased production is not the cultivation of more hemp plants to a 

 given area but the invention of a machine of large capacity for extract- 

 ing the fibre. With the old hand machines, which require only three 

 men to work them, and are carried on the heads of the operators into 

 the forests of the hemp plant, the extraction is done so slowly that for 

 every stalk which is cut and stripped into fiber at least five are left to 

 decay in the field. The rapidity with which the fiber deteriorates 

 after the stalks are cut has so far prevented the work of extraction 

 being done at one central point. Increased means of transportation 

 might make such a central factory possible. 



The manager of one of the largest tobacco factories, for which 

 Manila is famous, asserted that the quality of the leaf received from the 

 native growers was inferior to what it had been twenty years ago, and 

 although it was well known that the original seed was imported from 

 Habana, that no late importations of good tobacco seed from Cuba had 

 been made. The distribution by the Government of a large quantity 

 of the best Cuban and Sumatran seed is an experiment well worth 

 making, and the careful selection of the seed from the best Manila- 

 grown strains a matter of prime importance, considering the very large 

 dividends paid by the Sumatra companies out of sales made principally 

 in America, and the possibility of there being produced in the Philip- 

 pine- a cigar wrapper equal to the famous Sumatran. 



There is a great varietv of native-made fabrics which are most 

 diaphanous in nature. These are woven in plain but pretty patterns, 

 and are so universally worn by the natives of even the poorest classes 

 that they give the street and market scenes an appearance of neatness 

 and bright color not met with elsewhere in the East. These fabrics 

 are made from the Manila hemp liber and that of the native pineapple, 

 and are often shot with threads of bright-colored silk. Though of a 

 harsh texture, and objectionable when worn next the skin, they are 

 easily washed and starched, and are of great durability. The Chinese 

 of Singapore are said to pay big prices for this pineapple cloth, of 

 which they make their loose, comfortable jackets. It is possible that 

 improved machinery and an increasing Chinese demand may make the 

 manufacture of these Manila fabrics a paying industry. As yet the 

 fiber of the pine is obtained chiefly by means of primitive machines 

 worked by hand. 



The prospects for rubber cultivation are as yet unexplored. There 



