hundred nuts for each bearing tree, whether or not,
hurricanes deteriorate or destroy the produce, or thieves plunder
the plantations, as very frequently happens. In case deficiencies are
proved against him, he is compelled to pay for them in money, at the
rate of twenty-five reals per thousand, the price at which the king
sells them in the monopoly-stores. Besides, the precise condition of
delivering in two hundred bonga nuts, according to the stipulations
imposed upon him, presupposes the previous exclusion of all the injured
or green ones; and although the ordinary trees usually yield as many as
three hundred nuts each, great numbers are nevertheless spoiled. If, to
the adverse accidents arising out of the storms and robberies, we add
the effects of the whims or ill-humor of the receivers, it is not easy
to imagine to what a length the injuries extend which befall the man
who has the folly or misfortune to become a planter of this article.

[Folly of monopoly plan.] On the other hand, as in the conveyances
from the minor to the larger depots, frauds are frequently committed,
and the heaping together of many millions of nuts inevitably produces
the fermentation and rapid putrefaction of a great number of them,
it consequently follows that the waste must be immense; or if it is
determined to sell all the stock laid in, without any distinction in
quality and price, the public must be very badly served and displeased,
as in fact too often happens. Since, therefore, the habit of using
the buyo is still more prevailing than that of tobacco, when suitable
supplies cannot be had in the monopoly stores, the consumer naturally
resorts to the contraband channels, although he encounters some risk,
and expends more money. It is also very natural that the desire of
gain should thus lead on and daily expose a number of needy persons,
anxious by this means to support and relieve the wants of their
families. Returning, however, to what more immediately concerns the
grower, I do not know that the oppressive genius of fiscal laws has,
in any country of the globe, invented one more refinedly tyrannic,
than to condemn a man, to a certain degree at least, as has hitherto
been the case, to the punishment of Tantalus; for the law forbids the
Filipino to touch the fruit of the tree planted with his own hands,
and which hangs in tempting and luxuriant abundance round his humble
dwelling.

[Its modification desirable.] It would be easy for m