not left for their development, the main stem would flower before
it had reached its full height and circumference, whereas sugar-cane
is purposely choked in virgin soil to check its running too high and
dispersing the saccharine matter whilst becoming ligneous.

A great advantage to the colonist, in starting hemp-growing in virgin
forest-land, consists in the clearance requiring to be only partial,
whilst newly opened up land is preferable, as on it the young plants
will sometimes throw up as many as thirty suckers. The largest
forest-trees are intentionally left to shade the plants and young
shoots, so that only light rooting is imperatively necessary. In
cane-planting, quite the reverse is the case, ploughing and sunshine
being needful.

The great drawback to the beginner with limited capital is the
impossibility of recouping himself for his labour and recovering
profit on outlay before three years at least. After that period the
risk is small, drought being the chief calamity to be feared. The
plants being set out on high land are extremely seldom inundated, and
a conflagration could not spread far amongst green leaves and sappy
petioles. There is no special cropping season as there is in the case
of sugar-cane, which, if neglected, brings a total loss of crop; the
plants naturally do not all mature at precisely the same time, and the
fibre-extraction can be performed with little precipitation, and more
or less all the year round, although the dry season is preferable for
the sun-bleaching. If, at times, the stage of maturity be overlooked,
it only represents a percentage of loss, whilst a whole plantation
of ripe sugar-cane must all be cut with the least possible delay. No
ploughing is necessary, although the plant thrives better when weeding
is carefully attended to; no costly machinery has to be purchased
and either left to the mercy of inexperienced hands or placed under
the care of highly-paid Europeans, whilst there are few agricultural
implements and no live-stock to be maintained for field labour.

The hemp-fibre, when dry, runs a greater risk of fire than sugar,
but upon the whole, the comparative advantages of hemp cultivation
over sugar-cane planting appear to be very great.

Hemp-fibre is classified by the large provincial dealers and Manila
firms as of first, second, and third qualities. The dealers, or
_acopiadores_, in treating with the small native collectors, or
their own workpeople, take deli