MODERN METHODS IN RICE CULTURE. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The cultivation of rice in the Philippines is in many respects similar to 

 that practiced in China, Japan, India, and other oriental countries. It is 

 true that plows are more generally used here than in these latter coun- 

 tries, but they are such primitive affairs and the work performed with 

 them is so unsatisfactory that, economically considered, they are of very 

 little more value than the mattock and the spade. The main operations, 

 however, such as preparing the seed beds, transplanting, puddling the 

 soil, and harvesting the crop all conform to the oriental type and are such 

 as characterize all countries where labor if cheap. 



So cheap is labor in some of these countries that a man's wages for one 

 year are $15 gold and board. Consequently a farmer has very little 

 inducement to invest money in labor-saving machinery, and it is ques- 

 tionable whether it would be advisable, or even practicable, to make a 

 radical change in the rice culture of China and Japan. Most of the lands 

 suitable for rice growing are already utilized for that purpose, and so 

 dense are the populations that it would be next to impossible in these 

 countries to produce sufficient food to maintain the present inhabitants 

 and the necessary draft animals if modern farm machinery were intro- 

 duced. Besides, the use of labor-saving machinery would result in throw- 

 ing a large portion of the people out of employment and thus entail wide- 

 spread suffering and hardship. In addition to this it may be said that 

 the fields are not properly laid out for {he use of modern agricultural 

 implements. The majority of the fields are small, irregular strips of land, 

 divided from one another by levees which have been constructed at great 

 cost of time and labor, and before gang plows, disk choppers, and twine 

 binders could be introduced it would be necessary to throw these levees 

 down. 



In the Philippines no such obstacles exist. The population is com- 

 paratively sparse. In a territory equal in extent to the whole of New 

 England and the State of New York there are only some six or eight 

 million people. The consumption of rice greatly exceeds the produc- 



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