r the soil and
forms tubers, like the common potato. It is a favourite article of
food among the natives, and in nearly every island it is also found
wild. In kitchen-gardens it is planted like the potato, the tuber being
cut in pieces. Sometimes it is dried (Tagalog, _Pacumbong camote_). It
is also preserved whole in molasses (Tagalog, _Palubog na camote_).

_Gabi_ (_Caladium_) is another kind of esculent root, palatable to
the natives, similar to the turnip, and throws up stalks from 1 to 3
feet high, at the end of which is an almost round leaf, dark green,
from 3 to 5 inches diameter at maturity.

_Potatoes_ are grown in Cebu Island, but they are rarely any larger
than walnuts. With very special care a larger size has been raised
in Negros Island; also potatoes of excellent flavour and of a pinkish
colour are cultivated in the district of Benguet; in Manila there is
a certain demand for this last kind.

_Mani_ (_Arachis hypogaea_), commonly called the "Pea-nut," is a
creeping plant, which grows wild in many places. It is much cultivated,
however, partly for the sake of the nut or fruit, but principally
for the leaves and stalks, which, when dried, even months old, serve
as an excellent and nutritious fodder for ponies. It contains a large
quantity of oil, and in some districts it is preferred to the fresh-cut
_zacate_ grass, with which the ponies and cattle are fed in Manila.

The Philippine pea-nut is about as large as that seen in England. In
1904 the American Bureau of Agriculture brought to the Islands for
seed a quantity of New Orleans pea-nuts two to three times larger.

_Areca Palm_ (_Areca calechu_) (Tagalog, _Bonga_), the nut of which
is used to make up the chewing betel when split into slices about
one-eighth of an inch thick. This is one of the most beautiful
palms. The nuts cluster on stalks under the tuft of leaves at
the top of the tall slender stem. It is said that one tree will
produce, according to age, situation, and culture, from 200 to 800
nuts yearly. The nut itself is enveloped in a fibrous shell, like
the cocoa-nut. In Europe a favourite dentifrice is prepared from
the areca-nut.

_Buyo_ (_Piper betle_) (Tagalog, _Igmo_), is cultivated with much
care in every province, as its leaf, when coated with lime made from
oyster-shells and folded up, is used to coil round the areca-nut,
the whole forming the _buyo_ (betel), which the natives of these
Islands, as in British India, are in the habit