The Huge Forests.
There are great forests of costly woods in the colony, mahogany, sapan-wood, log-wood, iron-wood, ebony, and cedar; beside fifty varieties not known to European markets, but eagerly sought for by merchants from China. The cedar is almost exclusively used in making cigar boxes; and I have seen beautiful knotted and polished war clubs of iron-wood used by the remoter savages in their battles with other tribes; they are as black as ebony, and nearly as hard as steel. These various woods yield logs from eighteen to seventy feet in length. The molave is especially valuable: the sea-worm cannot bore it, the white ant eat it; nor is it affected by water or by climate. It is used for the frames of vessels, and would be unsurpassed for railroad ties, being practically invulnerable.
The palma brava is used in the making of bridges, piles, and piers—wherever, in short, resistance to water is necessary.
Lanete-wood is useful in carving and in the making of musical instruments, or elsewhere where delicacy is required, as well as strength.
From sapan a rich crimson dye is extracted. This is obtained by cutting the smaller branches into little pieces and soaking them in boiling water. This dye is much esteemed, but is not so permanent as that made from cochineal.
Shifting Lumber in a Forest of Tayabas.
There are many hundreds of islands in the Philippines with thousands of miles of virgin forests, with woods suitable for ship-building, houses, cars, fittings, furniture, wharves, bolts, axe-handles, carriages, wheels, and everything else that timber is used for; besides some exquisite pink, red, yellow, and veined varieties, capable of high polish, and suitable for veneering and for dye-woods. The saps of many trees, also, give a hard, durable glaze.
Magnificent orchids abound in all parts of the Philippines. One specimen was recently sold for $500. And there are rubber trees that have hardly been worked, but have, nevertheless, a future of great importance.