an,

the equivalent of which in English measure is thus, viz:--

1 Atapan = .16875 of a pint.
1 Chupa = .675 of a pint.
1 Ganta = 2 quarts, 1 2/5 pints.
1 Caban = 16 gallons, 3 quarts, 1 pint.

Rice of foreign importation is weighed and quoted by the picul of
133 1/3 lbs. avoirdupois, subdivided as follows, viz.:--

16 Taels = 1 Catty; 10 Catties = 1 Chinanta; 10 Chinantas = 1 Picul.

Thirty years ago rice was exported from the Philippines, but now not
even sufficient is produced for home consumption, hence this commodity
is imported in large quantities from Siam, Lower Burmah, and Cochin
China to supply the deficiency. In 1897 nearly 65,000 tons of rice
were brought from those countries, and since the American occupation
the annual receipts of foreign rice have increased to fivefold. Sual
(Pangasinan), on the Gulf of Lingayen, was, thirty-five years ago,
a port of importance, whence rice was shipped to China (_vide_
p. 261). This falling off of rice-production did not, however,
imply a loss to the population in Spanish times when imported rice
was sold cheaply, because, in many provinces, land formerly used for
rice-growing was turned to better account for raising other crops
which paid better in a fairly good market.

The natives everywhere continue to employ the primitive method of
treating rice-paddy for domestic and local use. The grain is generally
husked by them in a large mortar hewn from a block of _molave_,
or other hardwood, in which it is beaten by a pestle. Sometimes
two or three men or women with wooden pestles work at the same
mortar. This mortar is termed, in Tagalog dialect, _Luzon_, the name
given to the largest island of the group. However, I have seen in
the towns of Candava (Pampanga), Pagsanjan (La Laguna), near Calamba
in the same province, in Naig (Cavite), in Camarines Province, and
a few other places, an attempt to improve upon the current system
by employing an ingenious wooden mechanical apparatus worked by
buffaloes. It consisted of a vertical shaft on which was keyed a
bevel-wheel revolving horizontally and geared into a bevel pinion
fixed upon a horizontal shaft. In this shaft were adjusted pins,
which, at each revolution, caught the corresponding pins in vertical
sliding columns. These columns (five or six)--being thereby raised
and allowed to fall of their own weight when the raising-pins had
passed on--acted as pounders