214 DEPARTMENTAL REPORTS. 



ment of the station, as in the case of other Territories. I see no 

 good reason why the government of Porto Rico should not supplement 

 the National funds for an agricultural experiment station in the same 

 way. Meanwhile, the headquarters of the station will be maintained 

 at San Juan, and such investigations will be undertaken as can be pur- 

 sued on lands leased or loaned by residents of the island desiring to 

 engage in cooperative work with the station. 



Information regarding the agricultural needs of the island and 

 methods which may be adopted for the improvement of agriculture 

 on the basis of our present knowledge will be collated and published, 

 and the people will be aided in this and other ways to improve the 

 agricultural conditions. Efforts will be made to institute experiments 

 in the culture of coffee and citrus and other fruits. Experiments are 

 much needed to discover effective methods for the extermination of 

 the "changa," a mole cricket that does great damage to many crops. 

 There are also forms of plant lice and scale insects very injurious to 

 coffee and citrus fruits, which should be studied with reference to 

 their repression. 



Every effort will be made to expend the funds at present available 

 in useful investigations and in the dissemination of information of 

 value to the agricultural people of Forto Rico. As soon as the ques- 

 tion of the location of the station is settled, it is hoped to proceed 

 rapidly with the erection of buildings, the equipment of the station 

 with apparatus, implements, and live stock, and the making of horti- 

 cultural and other plantations, as well as the institution of experi- 

 mental inquiries which will place this station on a par with the others 

 in the United States. For the regular maintenance of an experiment 

 station in Porto Rico, as elsewhere, not less than $15,000 will annually 

 be required, and I therefore recommend that Congress be asked to 

 appropriate this sum for this station for the fiscal year beginning July 

 1, 1902. 



Agricultural Investigations in the Philippines. 



In my report for 1899 the suggestion was made that as soon as 

 peace and order were established in the Philippines, provisions should 

 be made for an investigation there to determine the needs of the agri- 

 culture of those islands and the ways in which these could best be met 

 by the establishment of agricultural experiment stations. With the 

 establishment of civil government over a considerable area in the 

 Philippines the time seems to have arrived to renew the suggestion. 

 In order to determine in a preliminary way the conditions heretofore 

 existing in the Philippines with reference to agriculture and agricul- 

 tural investigations, I called upon Dr. W. H. Evans, of this Office, to 

 examine Government reports and other works bearing on these sub- 

 jects and to prepare a summary report thereon. I present his report 

 herewith : 



Agriculture in the Philippines does not seem to have prospered as would have 

 been expected in a country possessing such fertile soils and diversified climate. 

 At some time in the history of the islands there have been successfully introduced 

 nearly every important agricultural industrj^ of tropical and temperate climates. 

 After flourishing for a while many have been almost entirely abandoned. To-day 

 a few staple crops are grown to a considerable extent, but of such an important 

 crop as rice, the bread of the islands, not enough is produced to supply the local 

 demands. The growing of rice is better understood by the people at large than 

 any other crop, yet by their primitive methods of culture and crude machines 

 they are unable to supply their own necessities. Of agricultural products, mostly 

 food stuffs, up to 1890, there were imported annually more than $4,000,000 worth, 



