Edible Products. 



166 



1 gallon of water, then covered with one thickness of corn-bag mat, and over this 

 guinea grass (that has lain spread out in the shade for one day) packed closely 

 to the depth of about 3 inches or 4 inches. Two days after, on the remova 

 of the grass, the tobacco will be in excellent condition for handling and class- 

 ing. The peppermint counteracts the smell of the grass, and if, as the tobacco 

 is taken out and a fresh surface exposed it is found to be dry, it will be necessary to 

 allow the grass to remain, spraying as lightly as before with the mixture at the end 

 of each day, until the whole is classed. Some cigar manufacturers who use 

 native wrappers in preference to Sumatra insist on the carpa leaves being classed 

 according to their various colours : — 



Claro ... light yellow- 

 Colorado claro ... brownish yellow 

 Colorado ... brown 

 Colorado maduro ... dark brown 

 Maduro ... dark 



but as the use of the Sumatra wrapper is rapidly gaining ground, the classing by 

 colour will soon be unknown in Jamaica, the native wrapper being used as the 

 binder ' (Cuban ' capoti ') which is the layer of tobacco between the ' filler ' of 

 the cigar and the wrapper. — Imperial Department of Agriculture, W.I. 



(To be continued.) 



THE SUGAR INDUSTRY OF THE PHILIPPINES. 



There has been a general disposition to ridicule the Philippine sugar 

 industry and to consider it impossible of development, excepting by the intro- 

 duction of American capital and American methods. We think this is hardly fair 

 when we consider that in Cuba, under the domination of Spain, the sugar crop 

 was brought up to a total of about a million tons before the Spanish war, and that 

 in 1893 the Philippines exported 261,537 tons, while Louisiana, in the same year, 

 made about 265,836 tons. 



We give below in parallel columns the respective sugar crops of Louisiana 

 and of the Philippines for three decades, beginning with 1868, directly after the 

 civil war, and ending with 1898, the year of the Spanish war. The Louisiana 

 crops are taken from Bouchereau's Report, which gives the total crop in Louisiana 

 in long tons for the years enumerated. The data for the Philippine crops is from 

 the evidence given in by Mr. Willett of Willett & Gray, in the tariff hearings in 

 Washington, and is the record of the sugar exported from the Philippines, the 

 total crop for the years named being probably 5 to 10 per cent, greater than this 

 record. It will be noticed that there is considerable parallelism between the crops 

 ol the Philippines and Louisiana for the years given, and that it was only in the 

 year 1893 that Louisiana began to surpass the Philippines in sugar production. It 

 will also be noted that the total production for the thirty-one years under con- 

 sideration, 1868 to 1898, inclusive, was 673,000 long tons greater for the Philippines 

 than the production in Louisiana during the same period. If we add 6 per cent, 

 to the production of the Philippines for home consumption, the record of these 

 three decades would show that the production of the Philippine Islands was 

 a million tons greater than the sugar production of Louisiana during the same time- 



The Philippine sugar industry had attained as great progress as had that of 

 Cuba. It was well organized, as such tropical industries were then organized, 

 and the Philippine sugar product was one of the important factors in the markets 

 of the world. The American exploiters of the Philippines endeavoured to deride 

 this industry and to refer to the quaint little mills and queer old-fashioned 

 devices in use among the smaller sugar producers as though they were typical. 



