months later it is cut stalk by stalk; the reaper receiving
half a real daily wages and food. The produce is between two and three
cabanes per ganta, or fifty to seventy fold. The land costs nothing,
and wages amount to nearly five reals per ganta of seed-corn. After a
good harvest the caban fetches four reales; but just before the harvest
the price rises to one dollar, and often much higher. The ground is
used only once for dry rice; camote (batata), abaca, and caladium being
planted on it after the harvest. Mountain rice is more remunerative
than watered rice about in the proportion of nine to eight.

[Other products.] Next to rice the principal articles of sustenance
are camote (convolvulus batatas), ubi (dioscorea), gabi (caladium),
palauan (a large arum, with taper leaves and spotted stalk). Camote
can be planted all the year around, and ripens in four months; but
it takes place generally when the rice culture is over, when little
labor is available. When the cultivation of camote is retained,
the old plants are allowed to multiply their runners, and only the
tubers are taken out of the ground. But larger produce is obtained by
cleaning out the ground and planting anew. From eighteen to fifteen
gantas may be had for half a real.

[Abaca.] Although there are large plantations of abaca, during my
visit it was but little cultivated, the price not being sufficiently
remunerative.

[Tobacco.] Tobacco also is cultivated. Formerly it might be sold in
the country, but now it has to be delivered to the government.

[Balao oil.] A resinous oil (balao or malapajo) is found in Samar
and Albay, probably also in other provinces. It is obtained from a
dipterocarpus (apiton), one of the loftiest trees of the forest, by
cutting in the trunk a wide hole, half a foot deep, hollowed out into
the form of a basin, and from time to time lighting a fire in it, so as
to free the channels, through which it flows, of obstructions. The oil
thus is collected daily and comes into commerce without any further
preparation. Its chief application is in the preservation of iron
in shipbuilding. Nails dipped in the oil of the balao, before being
driven in, will, as I have been assured by credible individuals,
defy the action of rust for ten years; but it is principally used as a
varnish for ships, which are painted with it both within and without,
and it also protects wood against termites and other insects. The
balao is sold in Albay at four rea