The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1900-07-25
HEMP CROPS
PROFITABLE
Frank Carpenters Last
Letter.
\ PHILIPPINE INDUSTRY
How Farms Are Managed 70 as to
Yield an Immense Profit--Labor
Question.

DAVAO, July 1, 1900.--The Philippine
Islands could furnish gallows enough to
hang the whole human race. Their chief
product IS hemp, and they sell about 49,
100000 silver dollars worth of 1t every
year. You see hemp spread out to dry in
the streets of the principal towns. 1t is
carried in from the country on buffalo
carts or on the backs of men, and many
petty Chinese merchant has made his
fortune by dealing in it. We pay every
year several million dollars for the ma
New York, Boston and other cities, and
there made into all kinds of rope. from
clothes lines to cabies. A vast deal Of 1t
goes to the Northwest to make binding
twine for harvesting. Some of 1t Is en-
ployed in our golu, silver and iron mines.
and the finer qualities are mixed with
silk and used in weaving. 1t Is made in
to hammocks. 1t is used for nets and in
Paris it goes into making Of hats. tapes
try and carpets. From the waste and
old ropes Manila wrapping paper is made,
and here in the Philippines the finest of
the fiber mixed with the threads OF the
pineapple, Is woven INTO an exquisite
stuff known Jus, cloth, which the
American ladies buy for party dresses
and which is commonly used by the rich
er of our Filipino sisters.
There are thousands of men in these
islands who live off the hemp industry,
and there are merchants here who have
made fortunes out of shipping the prod
yet abroad. Some of the best opportuni-
ties for fortune making in the Philippines
are in planting and raising hemp, and In
| the future there will be many Americans
Engaged in the different branches of the
industry.
WHERE THE HEMP COMES FROM.
! / find that the hemp plant grows In
nearly every one of the Philippine ISL
ands. There are provinces In LuZon which
are supported almost entirely by It, and
the islands OF Leyte and Samar raise
Z, thousands of bales of it every year. When
the ports of the eastern part of the Phil
iippines were opened up, about a hundred
thousand bales were found there ready
for shipment, and today there are steam
ers loaded with them going out from the
Philippines
The province of Alhay, which is in the
southeastern part of Luzon. g one Of the
lbest hemp districts. yielding more
than six million pounds the stuff an
nually. a great deal Of 1t is produced In
iCebu, and a limited quantity on this ISL
and of Mindanao Some of the finest
hemp grown comes from here. and there
are thousands of acres, / might also cay
millions of acres, which could be turned
to hemp raising.
| From inquiries which 1 have made
from people interested in the subject, the
lavailable territory has hardly been touch
ed, and the product might be made ten
times as large as ii is. So far the Phil
ippine islands are the only places in the
world where the hemp plant has been
successfully grown. Attempts have been
made to raise it in, India and elsewhere.
but so far none has succeeded.
A VISIT TO A. HEMP PLANTATION.
spent this morning going through one
of the largest of the hemp plantations of
Mindanao. II you have ever seen ba-
mana grove you can imagine how the
plantation looks. The hemp plant or
Iabaca as II is here called, is the musa
textils a species of the same family as
the edible banana, whose botanical name
| is the musa paradlsaica. A hemp tree
looks just like banana tree. 1t is more
of a plant than tree. sDrouting up
! from the ground to a height of from
twenty to twenty-five feet,s composed of
many leaves wrapped round and round
about a central stalk, which, when the
lpant is full grown, towers high in the
air above you. The outer leaves each
a foot wide, and ten feet more long.
AS they grow upward they branch out
from the stalk, shading the ground. The
hemp comes from the inner leaves, which
are tightly wrapped around the central
stem, there being so many of them that
the plant at its base is from eight 70
ten inches thick.
AS 1t stands I'm the field the plant stalk
is as crisp and juicy as stalk of celery
and it can easily be cut down with q
carving knife. The men l saw cutt' :
fused bolos, the same knives that they ,5se
for cutting off heads. They are not un
like our corn cutters, save that they are
heavier. and that as usual thing they
are kept as sharp as razor
had to go some distance from Davao
to reach the hemp plantation. After en-
tered 1t 1 kept close to my guide. for u
was SO large that / might have lost my
self In 1t and spent days finding my way
out. There were thousands upon thou.
sands of these abaca or hemp plant:
making veritable forest, rather {
iiungie in which there We're neither road!
nor paths The plants were about 81,
Z, / or eight feet apart, and they shaded tn,
+ ground SO that we walked in semi-dark
, ness In going through It.. although-it wa
almost midday. Now and then we stun
bled upon a cocoanut tree, but as a ru
there was nothing but hemp, hemp, hemp
Here and there a stalk had been cut out
but sprouts were growing up from tn
bottom, and / am told that hemp plan
tation once started will keep on repro
ducing itself.
HOW HEMP IS GROWN.
From one of the proprietors ] learne
|
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