1 62 PHILIPPINE AGRICULTURE 



Production in the Philippines. A few coffee plants seem 

 to have been cultivated in the old Manila botanical gar- 

 den more than a hundred years ago. In 1837 the Socie- 

 dad Econdmica awarded a prize of 1000 pesos to a man 

 who was supposed to have 60,000 bearing trees. Jagor, 

 a German traveler who visited the Philippines in 1859 

 and 1860, wrote: "The coffee plant thrives won- 

 derfully, and its berry has so strongly marked a flavor 

 that the worst Manila coffee commands as high a price 

 as the best Java." 



The coffee exported from the Philippines is still of an 

 exceedingly fine quality. The amounts exported have 

 been, in tons : 



1856 500 



1871 3500 



1874 2150 



1879 4i95 



1883 4560 



1894 603 



1895 1 80 (from Manila only) 



Important Coffee Districts. Of the Christian provinces, 

 Batangas has been foremost in coffee production; its 

 chief center was Lipa. Second in importance was the 

 highland part of Cavite, near Indang. At the time of the 

 great Philippine export of coffee it was almost entirely 

 furnished by these two provinces. It must be twenty-five 

 or thirty years since coffee was introduced into northern 

 Luzon. The greatest production of this district was 



