206 BACON AND GANA. 



the United States. At the present time the United States imposes a 

 dut)' of seven-eightlis of a cent per pound on cutch. Tlie Bureau of 

 Forestry could grant to a company running a cutch factory a twenty- 

 year license agreement to exploit large areas of timljer, provided that 

 they carry on the work economically. These grants might be made 

 on the following general conditions: 



(1) All trees destroyed must be used for firewood or for timber. Tlie firewood 

 industry of the Islands is a very important one, and could be carried on in 

 connection with the gathering of the bark. During the past fiscal year, taxes 

 were paid on 192,526 cubic meters of firewood. Any company could probably 

 make contracts with small cutters of firewood to obtain the bark at a very low 

 price. The mangrove swamps of Mindanao also furnish valuable timber which 

 is marketed at the present time usuallj' in the shape of telegTaph poles. These 

 are known to j^ield as high as 29,000 board feet of lumber per hectare. One 

 company now lumbeiing -in these swamps does not use the bark at all, and would 

 be glad to dispose of it at a low price. 



(2) Restrictions as to cutting should be imposed to insure reproduction. 

 This would be a help rather than a hardship, because it would insure a perpetual 

 supply of bark to the company. The figures of yield of bark given above are 

 based on the cutting of trees 25 centimeters and over in diameter, and are veiw 

 conservative. In many places clean cutting would be permitted, and then the 

 yield would be much greater. All restrictions made would depend on the 

 condition of the swamp at the time the cutting begins. At the present time, the 

 mangrove barks are assessed on an arbitrary value of 3 pe.sos (1.50 dollars United 

 States currency) per 100 kilos, and this value may be changed on three months' 

 notice. The bark is known to sell in the "provinces for as low as 1 peso per 

 100 kilos. During the past fiscal year taxes were collected upon 1,847 tons of 

 tan barks of which probably 90 per cent consisted of mangrove barks. These 

 mangrove barks are used in tanning carabao hides, and to a minor extent, for 

 coloring rice. 



All the species of mangrove trees of the eastern tropics, which are 

 used commercially for tamiing purposes, are also found in the Philip- 

 pines. These are : 



BhizopJiora murronata Lam. 



7?. conjugata L. 



Bruguiera gymnorliiza Lam. 



B. eriopetala W. & A. 



B. jjcirviflora W. & A. 



B. caryopliylloides Blume. 



Ceriops iagal (Perr.) C. B. Robinson. 



There are three large cutch factories in Borneo rising tan barks from 

 the same species of mangrove as those found in the Philippines. These 

 factories regard the process of manufacturing cutch as a trade secret, 

 but we can not belie\e that these so-called trade secrets are of a very 

 formidable nature, as we have succeeded in preparing very good grades 



