January, 1910.] 



29 



Edible Products. 



farmers are not able to understand either 

 the Spanish or the English publications 

 of the Bureau of Agriculture, that it 

 would be well to hold an occasional 

 convention in the provinces, similar to 

 farmers' institutes in the United States, 

 so that the f aimers would be put in 

 direct touch with men trained in the 

 science of agriculture. 



The chief agricultural products grown 

 at Orion are, in their order of im- 

 portance, rice, pineapples, and corn ; 

 while in Bulacan they are rice, sugar 

 cane, pineapples, and ylang-ylang; so 

 that, generally speaking, we can classify 

 the pineapple industry as third in rank 

 of all the industries of these two places, 



Orion. — In going over Orion, which is 

 the chief pineapple-producing town in 

 Bataan, I found a whole barrio devoted 

 to pineapple growing— that is, the barrio 

 of Damlog situated on the south side of 

 the town— while some other sections of 

 the town, like that on the west, may be 

 equally adapted to the pineapple indus- 

 try. Since the insurrection in 1896, the 

 barrio of Damlog had been entirely 

 abandoned by the people who once 

 inhabited it, so that the first pineapple 

 plantations which were established there 

 some five scores of years ago by a 

 Spanish military sergeant, are now 

 almost a jungle left to the mercy of wild 

 pigs and rats. 



Bulacan. — In the town of Bulacan 

 pineapples are grown principally in the 

 barrios of San Nicolas, Balubad, Tibig, 

 Pitpitan, and Tabang. The conditions 

 here are somewhat different from those 

 in Orion, due to the fact that better care 

 is given to the plantations here where 

 people live nearer to their plantations 

 than the people in Orion. In both 

 places only a few people are opening up 

 new plantations, and the old plantations 

 are not cultivated or fertilized as they 

 should be, and therefore produce but 

 little each year. 



Individual Plantations. 



The size of a pineapple plantation in 

 the places I visited ranges from 10 to 50 

 ares, giving an average of about 80 ares 

 (0"3 of a hectare) for each plantation, 

 However, each of the principal growers 

 in both provinces, namely, Sr. Mariano 

 Grei y Angeles, Sra. Pelagia Estacia, 

 Sra. Romana Labrador, and Sr. Teodorico 

 Tria in Orion, and Sres. Edeudato Lava, 

 Francisco Fernando, Manuel Catindig, 

 Jorge Tablan, Anastacio Rodriguez, 

 Francisco Baltazar, and Sra. Isidora 

 Serpio in Bulacan own much larger 

 tracts of pineapple land. 



Varieties. 



The variety of pineapple that is now 

 raised in Orion has a much larger fruit 

 but is not so sweet as the Bulacan 

 variety. In Bataan the leaves are not 

 used for their fibre as is the case in 

 Bulacan, and the Bataan pineapple, that 

 is said to have been introduced from 

 Bulacan, has apparently been producing 

 larger fruits at the expense of the 

 leaves. Another kind sometimes found 

 in Bulacan is a mestizo variety about 

 the size of the red Spanish. The existing 

 varieties of pineapples in the Philippines, 

 including the Marinduque variety, are 

 supposed to have sprung from pine- 

 apples that were introduced from South 

 Ameiica by the Spaniards more than a 

 hundred years ago. 



Methods of Cultivation. 



On examination of the number and 

 kind of plants in the field, we noted that 

 the plants were set out without leaving 

 any space for a pathway between the 

 rows, and that after each plant had 

 produced its full number of rattoons, 

 suckers, and slips, it rendered the 

 harvesting of the fruits amongst the 

 thorny leaves a most difficult task for 

 the farmers. During the harvesting 

 they often chop off the dead leaves and 

 the miniature plants above the soil. 

 This of course serves to thin out the 

 plantation ; but as these young plants 

 which are left in the ground grow very 

 thick, the plantation may again be turned 

 into an impenetrable field before the 

 next year. The fact that only from 40 

 to 60 per cent, of all the plants bear fruit 

 each year shows not only the effect of 

 close planting, where each plant grows 

 at the expense of the other, but also 

 that selection for the most productive 

 mother plants is not well put into 

 practice. The lack of proper selection 

 and cultivation are also evident in that 

 the plants produce fruits of such vary- 

 ing taste and size (from 0'69 to 1*61 

 kilograms each). However, it is safe to 

 say that the Philippine pineapple is 

 almost free from any pest or disease, save 

 from what is commonly known as 

 " tangleroot." The leaves produced are 

 from 8'34 to 18'07 decimeters long, but it 

 is to be regretted that the fibre from the 

 leaves is not as yet much used for textile 

 purposes. The leaves of plants after 

 maturing their fruit usually produce one 

 or more suckers, and not merely become 

 waste but a source of danger from fire. 

 The present method of extracting 

 pineapple fibre is merely by scraping the 

 fresh leaves with & sharp knife or a 

 broken piece of glass, leaving the fibre in 

 a clean condition to be dried in the sun, 



