Manila hemp never fails of a market, particularly in the United States, where it is most largely used. No other fibre known is so valuable for cordage, and the production might be greatly increased without overstocking the market. To the various frauds practised in its production may be added another employed by the manufacturers of cordage: the free adulteration of the pure Philippine fibre by the admixture of New Zealand flax and Russian hemp. The cultivation of the plant has been attempted outside the Philippines, but with no satisfactory result. Abacá planting, it is true, was tried successfully in the botanical gardens at Saigon, Cochin China, but the experiment was abandoned, for some reason unexplained. Abacá has also been planted in British India, and flourished as well there as at Saigon, but the effort to produce hemp from it failed through ignorance of the proper method of the drawing of the fibre. The mode of extraction tried was that practised with the ordinary hemp of India, excepting that the stems were first passed through a sugar-cane mill, to get rid of the sap. By this means fifty per cent. of the whole weight was squeezed out; the stems were then immersed in water and left to rot for ten or more days; afterward they were washed by hand and dried in the sun. Less than two pounds of fibre were thus gained from one hundred pounds of stems, and this bad in color and lacking in strength. This method is very unlike that employed in the Philippines, and the natives of the islands need have no fear of Indian competition under such conditions. The fibre will not bear the pressure of cylinders without damage in color, while the soaking of the stems is sure to weaken it. The experiments in India failed to distinguish between the Indian hemp and Manila hemp plants, which belong to different families, and require radically different treatment. The islands of Leyte and Marinduque, and certain districts in the large island of Luzon yield the finest quality of hemp. The province of Albay, the leading hemp-district of Luzon, cannot be surpassed in quantity and quality of yield, its annual hemp-crop averaging about 20,000 tons. Before 1825 the demand was little, and the hemp-yield insignificant. Since then, the growing demand has greatly developed the culture, the crop of 1840 being about 8,500 tons, in 1880 about 50,000 tons. It has been steadily on the increase. The United States receives the greatest proportion of this product, nearly all the remainder going to Great Britain and her Australian colonies. Manila is the principal port of shipment: the bales are sent thither from the plantations. Experience of a Planter.