THE SUPPLEMENT TO THE 



Tropical Agriculturist and Magazine of the G. A. S. 



Compiled and Edited by A. M. & J. FERGUSON. 

 No. 5.] NOVEMBER, 1911. [Vol. IX. 



AN IMPROVED " HATMAKING " 

 INDUSTRY FOR THE SINHALESE. 



A good many years ago a Sydney merchant, 

 seeing the "fishermen big straw hat" made 

 and |sold by Sinhalese women f'-om Cotta, was 

 so taken with them, that he left 30 sovereigns 

 (£30 sterliug) to get a consignment shipped to 

 his firm for distribution to retailers, to shep- 

 herds and cattlemen in " the bush " ! This was 

 a Godsend to poor people in Cotta in a year of 

 poor crops and dear rice. The Church Mis- 

 sionary, who took charge, had enough for a 

 number of families for months ! The hats were 

 duly shipped and distributed and sold ; but 

 there were no repeat orders and so the Cotta 

 hats evidently did not suit Australian shepherds. 

 But cannot the Sinhalese villagers do something 

 better? Here is a note and extract from our 

 correspondent in the Philippines : — 



" This may be interesting for the T.A. You have pro- 

 bably got the same palm in Ceylon, that is used here, and 

 might start a new industry in Ceylon. 



" If you send a reporter here in February for the 

 Carnival, he will see native girls mating hats in the 

 Carnival grounds. I think the Carnival Association pays 

 the hotel expenses of Pressmen from other countries." 

 The extract is from a Manila paper : — 



Hatmaking is Growing Industry, 

 exports op hats to the united states show 

 big increase. 



A new industry, of which little is known outside of com" 

 mercial circles, is growing in the Philippines in the making 

 of what are commonly termed bamboo hats. The customs 

 export figures for the fiscal year of 1911 show an increase of 

 over sixty per cent to the United States alone, but with a 

 small increase of ten per cent in the revenue. 



Members of tho local hat exporting firms state that the 

 reason for the small increase in revenue compared with 

 the large increase in the quantity exported to the States, is 

 the lack of increased production of the hner grades for 

 which experts are necessary. 



The coarser grades are in great demand among the work- 

 ing class, farmers, and the negroes of southern states owing 

 to their cheapness, their selling price being about twenty 



59 



five cents gold, and the Filipino workmen, recognising that 

 they can make as much revenue from the cheaper hats, 

 very seldom try to become experts in weaving the finer 

 grades. 



The chief article found in the local houses is called the 

 kalasiao or pototan. It receives its name from the locali- 

 ties in which it is manufactured, Kalasiao, Pangasinan, 

 and Pototan, Iloilo province. The fibre used is taken from 

 the unopened leaf of the buri palm from which four different 

 kinds of hats are produced, and is generally shaped over 

 cardboard in the form of an ordinary straw hat. It is 

 finished with two coats of a rice paste which gives it the 

 pure white appearance. 



The other two fibres from the buri palm are that 

 taken from the leaf, making what is termed the buri hat, 

 one of the cheapest, and that extracted from the inside 

 or pith of the stem of the palm leaf from which is woven 

 the buntal hat, Many other grades of hats are made 

 from the fibre of the buri palm in various sections of 

 the islands from which they receive their names, but cor- 

 rect classification is difficult as each hat-exporting firm 

 has its own standard of classification. 



The bamboo hat called Baliwag or Pulilan is made in 

 the towns of those names from bamboo splits and its 

 cheapness makes it the chief export hat of the Philip- 

 pines. These hats can be made within a fow hours, but 

 the finer grades, such as the large merry widow hats of 

 the finest quality, consume several weeks in weaving, and 

 bring an export price of $2 although when sold in the 

 States the prices range from $10 to $50 and sometimes 

 more. However the Philippine market supplies very few 

 of these hats compared with the cheaper grades. 



The export figures for the past fiscal year showed the 

 quantity shipped from the islands to be 1,025,596 as against 

 621,475 exported last year while the increase in revenue was 

 $17,638 gold. Of this amount over 700,000 hats were ex- 

 ported by Germann and Company, who are the leading 

 exporters in the islands, while the remainder was divided 

 between Manila Commercial Company, Fussell and Com- 

 pany, Max L. Tornow and Company, and several smaller 

 exporters who sell in small lots. 



Each firm has an expert for this department who is re- 

 quired to make a special study of the hat industry for a 

 number of years before he is considered competent to judge 

 between the different grades. 



The Bureau of Education and the Bureau of Science are 

 both working to bring the importance of this industry be- 

 fore the Filipino population, by issuing pamphlets on the 

 different phases of the subject, and the bureau of education 

 is establishing schools throughout the islands for the pur- 

 pose of teaching the Filipinos the art of weaving straws 

 and braids, 



