8 FARMERS' BULLETIN. 



Cotton, pineapple fiber, and ramie are produced in the Philippines, but 

 for the present they have dropped from the articles of export. They are 

 used in the economy of the natives, and, with the exception of pineapple 

 fiber, large quantities are imported. 



The other products mentioned, pandan, burri, nipa, and rattan, are 

 used more or less extensively throughout the Islands, and in some in- 

 stances form articles of trade beween island ports. All of these are 

 extremely useful to the natives. Pandan and burri are used extensively 

 in the fabrication of hats, mats, and coarse weavings. Nipa is used, 

 wherever it can be obtained, for the roofs and sides of dwellings, and the 

 rattan is a substitute for nails and pins in the construction of houses, a 

 serviceable article for. lashings and bindings, and is used extensively in 

 furniture making. 



As a whole the fibers and fiber products of the Philippines form an 

 important source of wealth to the Islands, and at present the attention 

 given to their economic production and preparation for market is inap- 

 preciable. It is believed that, by enlarging the fiber-producing area, by 

 improving the present methods of cultivation and preparation for market, 

 and by introducing such new fiber plants as would be adapted to the 

 climatic and labor conditions of the Islands the fiber interests will easily 

 retain their rank with the leading resources of the Islands. 



MANILA HEMP OR ABACA. 



This fiber, so well known in commerce, is produced by a species of the 

 banana family (Musa textilis). Musa is quite a large and specialized 

 genus, and some of the species comprise several varieties. Among the 

 Filipinos the genus is divided into three groups the plants which pro- 

 duce the edible banana of commerce (Visaya, saging) ; those which pro- 

 duce the fiber under consideration (abaca) ; and the wild banana (pacol), 

 which has no recognized economic value. The plants of all these species 

 produce a fiber of greater or less strength, and in tropical countries 

 where the plants grow the fiber generally finds some use in the economy 

 of the natives. 



The name, "Manila hemp," by which the fiber under consideration is 

 known, is a misnomer. Properly speaking, hemp is the product of an- 

 other plant, Cannabis sativa, a native of western and central Asia, and it 

 is a bast fiber or the fiber of the inner bark. But the Manila hemp is a 

 structural fiber; that is, it forms a part of the structural system of the 

 leaf sheath. Nearly all fibers first came into notice through their com- 

 mercial uses, and as commerce and utility do not stop to inquire into 

 scientific relationships, each fiber, as it came into extensive use, began to 

 be known as hemp, qualified by a word signifying the place from which it 

 came or the use to which it was put. Thus we have Manila hemp, Bow- 

 string hemp, Bombay hemp, Calcutta hemp, Pita hemp, water hemp, and 



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