shing the money
to carry on the warfare; then too, most of their balls were given on
Sunday night. True, a Filipino Sunday never seemed Sunday to me. I
could only say, foolishly enough, "But it is not Sunday at home." I
could not attend their parties and I had little heart to dance. I
had only to go to the window to see their various functions; it
could hardly be called merry as they went at it in such a listless,
lazy way, with apparently little enjoyment, the air that they carry
into all their pleasures.

PHILIPPINE AGRICULTURE.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

It has been said that the prosperity of any nation depends largely
upon its agriculture. The soil in the Philippines is very rich. The
chief product, which the natives spend the most time upon, is rice;
and even that is grown, one almost might say, without any care,
especially after seeing the way the Japanese till their rice. They
sow the rice broadcast in little square places of about half an acre
which is partly filled with water. When this has grown eight or ten
inches high they transplant it into other patches which have been
previously scratched over with a rude one-handled plow that often
has for a point only a piece of an old tin can or a straggly root,
and into this prepared bit of land they open the dyke and let in the
water; that is all that is necessary until the harvesting. They have
a great pest, the langousta or grasshopper, and they are obliged,
when these insects fly over a section of the country, to scare them
away by any means in their power, which is usually by running about
through the rice fields waving a red rag.

As I have said before they gather these pests and eat them. I have
seen bushels of fried langousta for sale in the markets. When they
gather the rice harvest, it is carried to some nearby store room,
usually in the lower part of the house in which they live. Then comes
the threshing, which is done with old-fashioned mills, by pounding with
a wooden mallet, or by rubbing between two large pieces of wood. Then
they winnow it, holding it up by the peck or half bushel to let the
wind blow the hulls off, and dry it by placing it on mats of woven
bamboo. I saw tons of rice prepared in this way by the side of the
road near where I lived. This being their staple, the food for man
and beast, one can form some idea of the vast quantities that are
needed. There was a famine while I was there and the U. S. government
was obliged to sup