i 88 The National Geographic Magazine 



little more so during this year than in 

 preceding years. The deaths from this 

 cause constituted 26.8 per cent of all the 

 deaths, or somewhat more than one- 

 fourth. These two causes, cholera and 

 malarial fevers, caused nearly three- 

 fifths of all deaths. Dysentery and 

 diarrhea together caused 69 out of each 

 thousand deaths, and was third in rank 

 of fatality. The fourth disease in fa- 

 tality was tuberculosis, whose victims 

 numbered 66 out of every thousand, and 

 the victims of smallpox, which raged in 

 many parts of the islands during the 

 year, were nearly as numerous, num- 

 bering 34 out of each thousand. The 

 victims of beri-beri, a disease which is 

 peculiar to the brown and yellow people, 

 due probably to insufficient nutrition, 

 numbered 13 out of every thousand, and 

 diseases of the stomach caused 1 2 deaths 

 per thousand. No other disease caused 

 as much as 1 per cent of all the deaths. 

 Puerperal septicemia, bronchitis, ty- 

 phoid fever, diphtheria, croup, and 

 meningitis each had a few victims, but 

 in each case less than 1 per cent. 



CONTRAST WITH THE UNITED STATES 



These figures are in strong contrast 

 with those which prevail in the United 

 States. In that country the most fatal 

 of all diseases is commonly tuberculosis, 

 which is usually credited with a little 

 over one-tenth of the deaths. Next to 

 that is pneumonia, in a nearly equal pro- 

 portion. This latter is well-nigh un- 

 known in the Philippines, its victims 

 numbering in 1902 only one in a thou- 

 sand of the deaths. 



In the United States dysentery and 

 diarrhea together carried off about 4.4 

 per cent, only two-thirds the proportion 

 in the Philippines, which was 6.9 per 

 cent, while heart disease, which is al- 

 most unknown in the Philippines, caused 

 6.7 per cent of all deaths in the United 

 States. Typhoid fever is vastly more 

 prevalent and deadly in the United 

 States than in the Philippines, its vic- 



tims numbering 3.4 per cent of all deaths 

 in the United States, while in the archi- 

 pelago the number was trifling. It is 

 much the same with meningitis, which 

 in the United States carried off 2.5 per 

 cent. Malarial fevers, prevalent as they 

 are in some parts of the United States, 

 are seldom fatal there, only 1.4 per cent 

 of all the deaths being due to this cause. 

 Kidney diseases, old age, apoplexy, and 

 many other diseases which claim numer- 

 ous victims in the United States were 

 either unknown in the Philippines or 

 claimed very few victims. 



THE AVERAGE FILIPINO FARM IS 

 VERY SMALL 



Nearly half the parcels of occupied 

 lands are less than one hectar (2.471 

 acres) in size, while thousands of tracts, 

 one- fifth of the total number, contain 

 less than 1 ,075 square feet. These small 

 parcels of land, many of them no larger 

 than ordinary kitchen gardens in the 

 United States, are resided upon by, cul- 

 tivated by, and contribute materially to 

 the subsistence of their owners or oc- 

 cupants, and the presentation of agri- 

 cultural statistics for the Philippines 

 would be extremely faulty and incom- 

 plete were they not included. 



The people of the Philippines are ex- 

 tremely gregarious ; the isolated farm- 

 house, so familiar in rural sections 

 throughout the United States, is practi- 

 cally unknown in these islands, whose 

 inhabitants almost universally live in 

 communities and largely subsist on such 

 products of the soil as can be cultivated 

 or gathered from wild growths in the 

 immediate vicinity of their dwelling 

 places. 



This custom of herding together is not 

 due alone to the social, company-lcving 

 disposition of the people. It has been 

 rendered necessary by the ladronism and 

 the raids of Moros that prevailed 

 throughout the islands for centuries. 



This has been one of the greatest ob- 

 stacles in the way of agricultural de- 



