The Principal Products of the Colony.
The products of the islands are various, including maize, rice, cotton, coffee, tobacco, sugar-cane, the cocoanut, the abacá, or manila hemp plant, and a large number of dye-woods, medicinal, and other useful plants, such as ebony, sapan-wood, tamarind, bamboo, numerous palms, fibrous plants, etc. But I am now concerned only with the agricultural products, and shall therefore confine this chapter to a consideration of two of the more important—rice and sugar.
In former years, the few that faced the obstacles to agriculture in an unworked country succeeded in obtaining fair returns in wealth from the cultivation of the main staples. But those palmy days exist no longer: prices have declined to one-third their former level, while the wages of the laborers have risen. The buffalo, the indispensable aid of the farmer, could then be obtained for one-fifth its present cost, on account of the limited demand. Trade in those days was much less than at present, but the native producers and traders occupied a sounder position, and comfort existed, where penury now prevails.
Women Employed in a Piña Shop.
Of late years, hundreds have gone into agriculture with much too little capital. They hold the land, but frequently without the deeds to show for it. Hence, their property is not negotiable, and they are thrown into the hands of the money-lender, who squeezes the life-blood from the unlucky planter. As agriculture yields less than thirty per cent., and this or more has to be paid in interest on capital, the contract is likely to end in the money-lender getting the land. Few of the planters succeed in saving their estate and throwing off their load of debt.