ll known as its culture is easy,
owing to strange fatality and causes which will be hereafter noticed,
is left almost in a neglected state, or, at most, confined to the
narrow limits of local consumption.

[Indigo.] Pangasinan, Pampanga, Bataan, La Laguna, Tayabas and
Camarines produce indigo of various classes, and, although its
preparation or the extraction of the dye, is in most of the above
provinces still performed in an equally imperfect manner, several
small improvements have recently been made, which have bettered the
quality, more particularly in La Laguna, the only district in which
attempts have been made to imitate the process used in Guatemala,
as well with regard to the construction and number of vats necessary,
as the precipitation of the coloring particles--detached from the plant
by the agitation of the water. In the other places, the whole of the
operations are performed in a single vat, and the indigo obtained is
not unfrequently impregnated with lime and other extraneous substances.

[Increasing culture.] Whatever may have been the causes of this evident
backwardness, from the period of the establishment of the Philippine
Company in these Islands, and in consequence of the exertions of some
of the directors to promote the cultivation of indigo, at that time
very little known, the natives have slowly, though gradually, been
reconciled to it; and discovering it to be one of the most advantageous
branches of industry, although accompanied with some labor and exposed
to the influence of droughts and excessive heats, as well as to the
risks attendant on the extraordinary anticipation of the rainy seasons,
have of late years paid more attention to it. The quintal of indigo
of the first class costs the planter from $35 to $40 at most; and in
the market of Manila it has been sold from $60 to $130, according to
the quality and the greater or lesser demand for the article at the
season. As, however, everything in this colony moves within a small
circle, it is not possible to obtain large quantities for exportation;
not only because of the risk in advancing the Indian sums of money
on account of his crop, but also owing to the annual surplus seldom
exceeding from two to two thousand five hundred distributed in many
hands, and collected by numerous agents, equally interested in making
up their return-cargoes.

[Sugar.] The cultivation of the sugar-cane is more or less extended
to all the provinces of these Is