The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-07-05

pioWed while under water, ana neglect- cd all the rest of the year.
 Several thousand coffee plants have been raised and are to be sent out to Tarlac, where the government has de- cided to establish a coffee plantation. Lettuce has been a complete success on the government farm. melons complete failure; tomatoes are a success. beets also success. and root crops generally good. Cabbage is poor. sweet potatoes good, and white potatoes a failure. Almost all the vegetables grown in the United States will grow here, and but | for the ants would give larger crops
 than in New York. Insects are certainly very destructive. owing partially to the | sour and neglected condition of the soil. Whenever possible the farm officials
 will give seeds and plants to those wish | ing to try improved methods, but they do not think the native farmers will take l much interest in such methods until
 American or other white farmers have
 set them an example. It will be pay ing speculation for those farmers who come here with modern machinery and knowledge of farming on modern lines. In this connection the greatest trouble | for would-he farmers lies in the difhcul- | ty of obtaining safe title to land. The new Land Registration Court may do | much. and a successful termination of the best land tied up at present where | money spent in improvements by a tenant would be money lost. The friars do not encourage better farming; their influence is against the betterlng of the condition of the laboring Filipino. The government farm officials have some ex- pectations that as soon as titles are safe certain American companies will come out to farm land in Luzon. The fear of iadrones has also been powerful factor in keeping away American capital. but there is little need of such fear now in the Island of Luzon. Ladronism is practically dead in Luzon. and Is flick ering to its death fin most of the other i islands.
 Few Farms Worked by Owners. At present there are few farms worked | by the owners: the owners rent out their land in little farms. taking half the crop | in lieu of money rent. Some of the | owners find the caribaos to work the land, and sometimes the tenant furnishes | them; but in either case the rent is fixed
 at half the crop. This Is not the worst
 of 1t; the tenant is also allowed to ob- | tain advances from the owner on the
 growing crops. and as long as he can get l an advance he will not work. When he | needs money he works on his land until he has made improvement to justify the owner in granting another advance. and | by the time the crop Is gathered he has no share in it. What does he care l whether 1t is a good crop or not? It is l not his, and he knows that his share will wipe out his debt, be 1t a good crop or a bad one.
 Where sugar is grown the crops are more than half wasted after the cutting of the cane. The juice is expressed in squeezers of type not more than several centuries out of date; it is evaporated in open pans at a tempera- ture in excess of PIP degrees. Half the juice is left in the canes. and of that which is extracted much is converted into sugar by the primitive process of evaporation. The crushed canes are aK burned. even the ashes not being return ed to the land: no fertilizer is used. and the land is impoverished to a considera- ble extent. cannot find, after diligent inquiry, of a case of crops for blowing under having ever been grown here. nor of the use of manure.
 The sugar is sent to market a sticky fiy-covered, brown. amorphous mass in mats, oozing with molasses and looking like badly made maple sugar.
 The government farm has raised many of rapidly growing species of rubber | tree; they have thrived well. but do not | find that there is a systematic rubber industry anywhere in the islands. An
 expedition into the Southern islands
 made recently by the government show
 ed the existence of lots of rubber trees
 and the absence of any knowledge on the
 part of the natives of the value of rub
 Der as a commercial product. Copra | is produced to some extent in the islands,
 but not systematically cultivated. The
 cocoanut tree will bear without any at-
 tention. and so 1t gets none. It is a
 strange thing that these islands do not
 produce all the cocoanut oil they need,
 and that they import much from other
 countries. This oil Is used as a food | fat in native cookery.
 | The Labor Problem.
 The labor problem is another difficulty ! that has had its influence in keeping
 away American farmers: but 1t is hardly
 possible that men who have raised crops
 with the class of machinery I have men
 tioned-plows made out of bamboo
 sticks and cultivators consisting of clubs
 would refuse to work on farms where
 American farm machinery is used.
 In Mindanao and Basilan. and indeed
 in all the wilder islands, the owners of
 the land are chieftains as we'll as land lords, and there Is no single thing on
 earth that they like so we'll as a good fight. They are simple in the extreme,
 and have been. in the past. inveterate
 pirates. Perhaps no better idea of the l people OI MInQaudO COulO De ROt InAn Dy
 reading Kiplings The Tomb of His
 Ancestors" The Moro Is a Bhil. Jan Chinn seems almost commonplace to
 those from Mindanao. It is not ladron-
 ism in the sense that he word has been
 used In speaking of the inhabitants of
 Luzon; 1t is just pure love of fighting.
 Within a short time one of the chiefs
 'dattoes' they are called-approached
 one of Pershings party with a request
 that he would tell the old datto when
 Pershing and his party were going home.
 He looked on this party as a particularly
 able lot of adventures-pirates like him
 self-and bore them no grudge on that
 account but waited patiently for the | storm to blow over that he might re-
 sume his former control.
 l He could not be induced to believe that
 there were any more Americans than ] those present, and though 1t would be
 soon time for them to go home again and
 look after their families. The military government is soon to be replaced by civil government in much of Mindanao. l The military have come in for so much l criticism when they governed by the I only means at the disposal of soldiers | force-that they have been keeping their
 hands of s long as they were not in-
 terfered with. and the government has
 been practically in the hands of the
 dattoes who are men of great ability and
 force of character. Their rule has been
 strong and able, and many of them have
 built up strong positions with the
 natives, and altogether outside of any IA AtE s41W.k kN-