It may be said in conclusion, that the rice and sugar planters have many insect enemies to contend against. One of the worst is the locust, which makes its appearance at times in overwhelming multitudes, and whose ravages I have elsewhere described. In some degree it replaces the food it destroys, the natives cooking and eating their foes, and in some districts, looking upon them as a luxury whose coming is worth praying for. The average annual production of rice is a million and a half piculs, and almost a million piculs are imported. THE HEMP PLANT AND ITS USES. Description of the Abacá. First and foremost among the useful plants of the Philippines stands musa textilis, a species of plantain that grows wild in many of the islands and is the source of the well-known Manila hemp, the most valuable of all fibres for cordage. The native name for the plant is abacá. In appearance it is not easy to distinguish it from the plant of the same genus that yields us that useful and agreeable fruit, the banana. The only visible difference really is that the banana tree is taller and its leaves are of a lighter green. The most marked distinction is in the fruit, that of the abacá being small and unfit for eating. Properly considered, the abacá, like all the plantains, is an herb, not a tree; that is, it bears flowers and fruit once only, then perishes. The root survives, however, and a new plant springs up. The abacá attains an average height of ten feet, though it sometimes grows much higher. Its favorite location is on hilly land, and it refuses to grow in swampy situations. I have often found it growing wild on mountain slopes of volcanic formation, where the little depth of soil scarcely gave it room to root. The value of this plant lies in its leaves, the petioles, or leaf-stalks, containing a long and strong fibre, for which it is widely cultivated. Little attention is given to the plant during its three years of growth. At the end of that time it sends up a central stem, upon which flowers appear. Now comes the work of the cultivator. Fruit is not permitted to appear, the flower-stem being cut away and the leaf-stalks that surround it torn into strips five or six inches wide, their length being over six feet. The Process of Manufacture. Bast, the name by which these strips are known, is made up of hemp-fibre and a soft pulpy substance enclosing it. The process of manufacture is a very simple one,--consisting in scraping this soft substance from the fibre. This work is done by the natives in a primitive fashion. Nevertheless, no one, so far, has been able to improve upon it.