MISCELLANEOUS SUBJECTS 



agricultural operations, broadly considered to include 

 everything from gathering gutta-percha to poultry 

 raising, are managed in a haphazard, rule-of-thumb sort 

 of way. In almost every case outside of the larger 

 crops such as sugar, coconuts, abaca and tobacco, small 

 unit farms, clearings and cultivated fields are the rule. 

 Through the several tribes' lack of trust in each other 

 and petty mutual jealousy there has been comparatively 

 little exchange of either methods or materials, which 

 predicates a highly localized, not to say specialized, 

 agriculture. Obviously then one should expect a wide 

 range of Philippine products and a large list of economic 

 materials seldom or never found outside certain res- 

 tricted localities in this country. 



The following notes are based partly on the writer's 

 personal observation and, especially as to statistics, 

 on the Annual Report of the Insular Collector of Customs 

 for the fiscal year ended June 30, 1913. 



Vegetable Products. 



Timber. After a number of years' earnest effort on 

 the part of the Bureau of Forestry to interest other 

 countries in the excellent woods of the Philippines, 

 figures are beginning to indicate that there is a rapidly 

 growing appreciation of at least a dozen or more of 

 the better sorts of our timber. The total export value 

 of timber, including logs in the rough, for the fiscal 

 year 1913, however, was only about 19,000; this figure 

 could easily be quadrupled without drawing heavily upon 

 the 40,000 square miles of forest. There are over 500 

 species of woody plants now known in the Philippine 

 Islands and new species are continually being described 

 by the Botanist of the Bureau of Science. Some 200 

 of these are of commercial importance. A rather large 

 number are peculiar to the Archipelago. 



Palm Sugar and Alcohol. Passing over the well- 

 known abaca or Manila hemp, sugar-cane, tobacco 

 and cereals, one of the most interesting vegetable pro- 

 ducts of the Philippines is palm alcohol. Although 

 certain local restrictions in the way of internal revenue, 

 transportation, etc., inhibit this industry, the provinces 



