Cattle, Catch-crops and Cover-plants 337 



even on the few estates then beginning to 

 plant them. Having warned you, therefore, 

 to look after your plants, and see they meet 

 with no harm, we will go on to the question 

 of cattle-raising, believing that we have here 

 in many, if not in most areas, a valuable minor 

 industry " catch-crop," if you like and even 

 an equally important industry to take note of 

 and rear up, side by side with the coco-nuts. 

 We say this because cattle give at the same 

 time their manure to the land, their labour 

 to the estates as draught oxen, &c., and 

 the value of their carcases, dead or alive, 

 to the pockets of the owners. Pigs also deserve 

 attention on account of the value of their 

 meat when slaughtered, and the advantages 

 of their manure whilst alive. Grazing cattle 

 in the Philippines, our friend tells us, should 

 be purchased and turned into the groves when 

 the trees are two and a half years or more old 

 let us say, to be quite safe, when they have 

 grown up out of harm's way. If this is done, 

 the animals will keep down the vegetation, and 

 add fertility to the soil. Experience of this 

 character has been met with at Zamboanga, 

 where experiments made resulted in the palms 

 bearing at one to one and a half years earlier 

 than when not grazed over by cattle. It was 

 further demonstrated that such methods for 

 fertilizing the soil of an old grove almost 

 double the production of the trees. This 

 being so, we can take it, therefore, that .besides 



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