Oct. ], 1899.] THE TEOPICAL AGRICULTUEIST. 
227 
rotting the fibre. The cleaner in a couple of minutes 
has cut a small bamboo tree and made a rough bench. 
With a bamboo strip fastened to his knife and that 
in turn fastened to his foot, he stoops over to the 
ground in front and then makes a full backward sweep 
as far as his arms can reach stripping a layer 
of fibre which he throws off to one side. This is 
repeated until the fibre is all taken off, and after 
spreading the strippings on the ground to dry in the 
sun he continues on to repeat the work in another spot 
wherever he may find a tree iu the proper stage of 
maturity. The work of stripping is heart-breaking and 
causes many a lame back ; even the native who is 
accnstomed to the work finds it no sinecure. A full 
tree will yield about one pound of fibre and a native 
can clean fifty pounds iu a week. The length of fibre 
is from six to eight feet. 
The natives are exceedingly independent and work 
as long as it suits their cenvenience. When a cleaner 
has got what he considers enough fibre cut, cleaned 
and dried, he ties it np and takes it down to market, 
where he sella it to the middleman and receives in re- 
tarn the market, value of the fibre. The plantation 
owner receives one-half this remuneration and the 
native keeps the other, and this is the only time the 
plantation owner figures in the whole proposition, i.e., 
when he gets his half. He simply watches to see that 
he gets his share. 
In the hemp porta representatives from the busi- 
ness houses here in Manila buy from those middle- 
men. They are either S-panish, Chinise or native 
dealers, who collect the hemp and barter with the 
native cleaners, using rice as the standard of exchange, 
GRIDES. 
Ordinarily, the hemp arrives here classified accord- 
ing to grade by the middlemen, but sometimes it is 
sent here to be classified and the experienced eye 
of the merchant spots at once all deffective or in- 
jured fibre. 
The quality depends a great deal upon the original 
cleaner and the state of the weather at the time the 
tree was cut. 
To turn out the best grade the cleaner must be 
very careful in his stripping and have the fibre dried 
at once, whereas, if allowed to stand awhile, the fibre 
losses its fine color and some of its strength. Hemp 
is graded accrding to fineness or coarsenesp, color, 
length of fibre and its tensile strength. The latter 
depends greatly upon the age of the tree. The color 
and coarseness show the quality of the Hemp and 
this depends, as mentioned above, wholly upon the 
cleaner. Sometimes he is careless, and more especially 
when high prices prevail in Manila he does not 
trouble himself about the quality of his work, but 
alma only to turn out as much as possible while 
that 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 fluctated con- 
tiually, owing to the war and the political situation 
in the Philippines. The average rate per ton, how- 
ever, is about £25 or £30 sterling. 
There are between 800,000 and 1,000,000 bales of 
hemp produced and shipped from these islands an- 
nually. The United States, acting as a centre for 
South America, Cuba and Canada,; and Enjsland; 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 business methods of 
the wily Asitic, both Chinese and Filipino. 
We all remember hcrw in visiting the owner of an 
or. hard he takes na through his fruit preserves and 
can tell every grade and species cf apple tree. They 
appear to the unpractised eye to be all apple trees. 
It is the same with the hemp plantation, There 
are great varieties of hemp and the native showing 
a visitor through the groves points out the different 
grades of trees, giving its native name and weather 
the quality is better or inferior to the ordinary. 
There are all residents here in Manila, foreign as 
well as native, who from long experience in handing 
hemp, can tell at a glance just which ports certain 
bales of hemp have come from. It is indeed a great 
business and cannot ha 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 fort 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 ex- 
ceptionally good for this purpose as it is so 
strong. — Manila Times July 28th. 
CONNECTION BETWEEN THE ROOTS AND 
LEAVES OF PALMS. 
I am sending you some samples of Sago Palm (Bot 
Caryota urens : Telugu, " Bakinimanu," Uriya, " So- 
lopo ") collected from the Nallamalai Hills iu the 
Kuruool District, where the species grows in great 
profusion in damp localities, covering the soil with a 
regular carpet of seedling. From these specimens 
several points may be noticed. First: when one leaf 
is developed there is one root ; when two leaves are 
developed there are two roots, and generally when 
three leaves are developed there are three roots, but 
sometimes more. There seems, therefore, to be a 
very intimate connection between the number of roots 
and number of leaves developed ; it may be that, 
where the number of roots exceeds the number of 
leaves developed, more new leaves are developing. I 
send also (but regret it has been much damaged) a 
specimen of grass which has, or has had, 28 leaves 
developed and has 28 main roots ; whether this is 
merely a coincidence I cannot say. 
I send also a portion of a Canjota stem; from which 
I have cut the leaves just above where they sepa- 
rate from the stem. Each leaf completely surrounds 
the stem at the base of the petiole ; in the samples 
of leaf sheaths herewith sent; I was obliged to cut 
the net-work of fibres, which was continuous all round 
the stem for from 2 to 4 feet in length, so as to 
take the leaf off the stem. One leaf is developed at 
each node, and between the nodes the petiole of the 
leaf forms part and parcel of the stem. In the Kistna 
District I found that 3 leaves were developed ai 
each node in the Palmyra {Borasms Jlahellifonnis) and 
in the date (Plumix sylcestris) even a greater number 
seem to be produced (1 hope to investigate the date 
more carefully next month). 
The stem of the Caryota, thus deprived of leaves, 
resembles a drawn-out telescope, the object glass of 
which is at the roots, and the eye-piece points 
upwards. 
Eeferring again to the seedlings, it will be seen 
that the first root almost resembles the tap root of 
an exogen, but that the monocotyledonous formation 
is so distinct. The collum in the dicotyledon is an 
indefinite point between the cotyledons ; in this, what 
corresponds to the collum (which term, though riot 
Botanically correct in this case, I shall adopt) is a 
most distiact point. There is not the slightest doubt 
that at this point, the fibro-vascnlar expansion from 
the seed, the root, the first leaf and its sheath di- 
verge. When the second root forms, it develops 
higher up than this collum point, and immediately 
below the sheath of the first leaf. The first leaf 
develops between its sheath, almost surrounded by 
it, and the fibro-vascnlar expansion from the seed, 
and is, therefore, in the middle of the plant, When 
