
26 PEOPLES OF THE PHILIPPINES 
islands, in fact, man is forced to maintain a constant 
struggle against the powerful growth impulse of the 
vegetation, which threatens everywhere to choke out his 
means of existence or reduce him to a parasitic condi- 
tion. Hardly is a patch cleared for agriculture when the 
jungle or rank growths of tough coarse grass invade it. 
The second year’s crop is almost invariably inferior to 
the first, and it is only in the minority of instances that. 
a field can be cultivated with profit a fourth or fifth time. 
With more labor in checking the wild vegetation than 
the produce is worth, the only recourse is to start fresh, 
and this the native has done from time immemorial. 
He burns off and clears another few acres of the forest, 
only to abandon this after a few seasons. ‘This is the 
well-known kaingin system, which has been enormously 
destructive of valuable timber, but is the only feasible 
method of working the soil under primitive and semi- 
civilized conditions and without irrigation. Where 
commercially utilizable crops such as Manila hemp, 
sugar, coffee, and tobacco are raised, a more permanent 
plantation method is practicable. But even in the case 
of these staples the native often finds it more profitable 
to abandon his field than to continue the difficult 
struggle. 
Population. The fertility of the islands is so great 
that they are capable of supporting an enormous popu- 
lation, and, relatively to many other parts of the world, 
they have apparently done so for a long time past. 
The number of inhabitants in the archipelago at the 
time of the Spanish discovery and conquest in the six- 
teenth century is put by some students at half a million, 
by others at somewhat more. These are small figures 
as compared with the nine to ten millions that at present 
find easy subsistence; but they are large numbers for a 
people that could at most be said to have attained 
