The daily morning journal and courier., 1898-07-11


 islands of the group The decomposed lava soil from the extinct volcanoes that run north and south through the larger Philippine islands, side by side with the active earthquake-maklug vol canoes, has exactly the qualities for growing sugar cane. The cana comes to maturity from seed in one year. The plantations on Samar hold the world 5 record for high production of rich cane to the acre. I have known Spanish planters on Samar and Luzon to make a clear profit of three hundred dollars an acre in one year. The Negritos la borers get from five to ten cents day for cultivation. Nature does the rest. With American invention and energy many a man can become millionaire in sugar growing in the Philippines. All the agricultural methods in the Philippines are three hundred years De- hind the times. OK carts are used tor transportation and oxen for ploughing. have seen planters using bent SUCK or a prod with an iron point for plough. In crushing the cane and eX- tracting the saccharine juice methods five hundred years old are still em- ployed.
 Indigo plants grow in incredible lux uriance throughout the Philippines The soil is so fertile that the least la Dor gives surprising results. Indigo plants yield double the capital used. Many of the richest families in Manila people who live in Madrid and Paris about one-third of the time and keep up royal stablishments-have made their wealth in the indigo trade. The Alvarado family owns an indigo plan tation of about twenty-five thousand acres and an indigo works on Samar' and it derives a revenue of fully torty thousand dollars. An American With half an eye can see many improvements and economies that might be made there, but he would not be thanked for suggesting them to any Philippine or Spaniard.
 "Cocoanut trees are bigger resource than one might suppose. The fruit IS demanded in the markets of the world as much as oranges and lemons. Every part of the tree is useful. The juices make oil and wine, the flores Of the leaves is woven into cloth, and the husks of the nuts are shipped by the boatload to England for doormats and other household articles. Profits of two hundred and fifty dollars an acre from a grove of cocoanuts are common, but in this land of siestas and procrastina- ton the people are so thriftless that they never rise to meet the market by extensive plantings of cocoanut trees. To the native cocoanut tree is Verl- table staff of life It will furnish his food, intoxicant, oil, vinegar, vessels, brushes, fish lines, ropes, fuel and wa ter. A cocoanut produces fruit when six years old in the Philippines know a young Englishman who spent about five thousand dollars in staring a cocoanut grove seventeen miles from Cavite, on Luzon. The Spanish were so afraid he would induce other enterprise ing British to come and do like him, that they ruined him in a few years by all manner of imposts and exactions. For instance, he had to pay about one hundred dollars to the government at Manila before he picked his first crop, and he had to pay an export duty of ten per cent. extra because he was not a native.
 "To illustrate how marvelously fertile is the soil in the Philippines, let me tell about the coffee plants. About seventy years ago several Spaniards began the cultivation of coffee in a little valley away at the north end of Luzon. They were the first coffee plants ever known on the island. A little wild animal re- sembling the civet of Africa Ca cross Iotr fCwl r. ing and scattering the growing coffee berries In a few years the plants growing from the scattered coffee ber- ries were all over that part of Luzon. For years past there have been wild coffee bushes all over the island, and all came from the civets scattering of the coffee seeds. Thousands of pounds are gathered from these wild bushes by the natives.
 Nowhere else does rice grow so pro- lifically as in the Philippines. The Chinese control the rice industry of the islands, but the Negritos do the work, There are a dozen Chinese millionaires in Manila, and they have made their wealth largely in the rice and sugar trade. Under American management the profits of rice growing could be cas- fly enlarged think am conservative in saying that by the crude, lazy ways of harvesting thirty per cent. of the yield is wasted. It would make a thrif- ty Yankee farmer groan to see the reckless waste of the natives.
 Tobacco grows on all the principal islands. Vanilla, pepper and cassia which are cultivated elsewhere in the l world, grow wild and in great clumps on the Philippine islands. Wheat and corn may be grown at the extreme north of the archipelago Oranges, lemons and guavas flourish in the for ests and back hills; not the least horti- cultural science has been exerted to- ward making superior varieties of these 1 fruits. I have seen in the dense tropi- cal forests of Mindanao thousands of the trees of costly woods, as logwood ebony, mahogany and iron wood Great fortunes await the men who shall get concession to go and ope- rate there. Sailors who have ventured far into these forests tell me that the ebony and mahogany trees there are the fifinest they have ever seen. Pine apples and benanas abound in damn spots, and are source of revenue on some islands, but the Central American products have kept these fruits out of the American markets.
 "Nayigators who visited the PbiIin-