179 



To turn out the best grade the cleaner must be very careful in his 

 stripping and have the fibre dried a' once, whereas, if allowed to stand 

 awhile, the fibre loses its fiae colour and some of its strength. Hemp 

 is graded according to fineness or coarseness, colour, length of fibre 

 and its tensile strength. The latter depends greatly up3n the age of 

 the tree. The colour and coarseness show the quality of the Hemp 

 and this depends, as mentioned above, wholly upon the cleaner. Some- 

 times he is careless, and more especially when high prices prevail in 

 Manila he does not trouble himself about the quality of his work, but 

 aims only to turn out as much as possible while the market condition 

 prevails. 



VALUE. 



The value of hemp varies. It has been known to be as high as 

 £60 per ton and then again as low as £14 sterling. Of late the price 

 has fluctuated continually, owing to the war and the political situation 

 in the Philippines. The average rate per ton, however, is about £25 

 or £30 sterling. 



There are between 800,000 and 1,000,000 bales of hsmp produced 

 and shipped from this island annually. The United States, acting as 

 a centre for South America, Cuba and Canada, and England as a 

 centre for Europe and Western Asia, take the bulk of the trade in 

 about even quantities. 



The bales are packed by both hand and steam presses and weigh 

 about 28 pounds each. They are thus conveniently handled. About 

 half a dozen of the shipping houses here do the bulk of the export 

 trade and, perhaps, forty steamers are utilized in the carrying of rice 

 to the ports and a return cargo of hemp to Manila. 



The handling of the business requires years of experience and a 

 long residence in the country, to be successful in coping with the busi- 

 ness methods of the wily Asiatic, both Chinese and Filipino, 



We all remember how in visiting the owner of an orchard he takes 

 us through his fruit preserves and can tell every grade and variety of 

 apple tree. They appear to the unpractised eye to be all apple trees. 

 It is the same with the hemp plantation. There are many varieties 

 and the natives showing a visitor through the groves points out the 

 different grades of trees, giving its native name and whether the 

 quality is better or inferior t) the ordinary. There are residents 

 here in Manila, foreign as well as native, who from long experience in 

 handling hemp, can at a glance judge which ports C3rtain bales of 

 hemp have come from. It is indeed a great business and cannot be 

 learned in a day. 



From the outer layer of a properly matured tree comes the finest of 

 fibre, and if this is carefully cleaned and dried, it is sometimes used by 

 the natives to weave into cloth. They mix it with silk and make a 

 sort of Indian muslin, in fact it makes the finest of hemp cloth. Some 

 of the natives in the hemp growing district make coarse cloth to wear, 

 while others make fishing nets, the fibre being exceptionally good for 

 this purpose as it is so strong. — Manila Times, 



