What the Hemp Is Used For.
Manila hemp is principally used in the manufacture of mats, sail cloth, and cordage. Out of the old ropes the well-known stout brown wrapping-paper is made—the Manila paper of commerce. In Paris the imported hemp-fibre is used in the manufacture of carpets, tapestry, net-work, hammocks; and even in the making of bonnets.
The natives obtain small quantities of very fine hemp-fibre from the carefully-selected edges of the petiole, or leaf-stalk, and from this they weave an exquisite, fine, silky material, suitable for gowns. This fibre is worth twice as much as first-class cordage hemp. The difficulties with the weave lie in the fragility, and, consequently, the frequent breakages of the thread; hence the expense of the material. On one of the islands a fabric is made from fine hemp and pine-leaf fibre. This the natives endeavor to sell to foreigners for pure piña, which is as fine and soft as Bengal muslin. The fraud is detected by the lack of flexibility in the material, it having a horse-hair stiffness. Any one that has ever touched a soft, silky, pine-leaf fibre handkerchief, for instance, would easily distinguish the difference.
A Bamboo-bridge in Albay.
Lastly, in enumerating the valuable qualities of manila hemp, I may state that the poorer classes of the natives of the Philippine Islands wear clothes that they manufacture from the ordinary fibre; and that even the bags in which the fresh coffee-beans are sent from the islands to foreign markets are made from the same material.
I may say, in concluding this subject, that hemp is the most important article of Philippine product, and that its production is capable of being greatly increased. The official documents that I have examined in Manila show that within the last decade the United States has received fully forty per cent. of all the hemp-product of the islands. In the ten years previous to 1898 a single firm in Boston bought 79,000 tons of hemp, paying for it an average price of 3 cents a pound in the Manila market. During this period the total export of hemp was 914,100 tons. The import to the United States during the same time averaged in value $2,400,000 a year. A liberal and progressive administration will soon increase this tenfold.
