Part 32 (1/2)
_Castor Oil_ is obtained in a few places from the seeds of the _Palma Christi_ or _Ricinus communis_, but the plant is not cultivated, and the oil has not yet become an article of current trade.
_Gogo_ (_Entada pursaetha_), sometimes called _Bayogo_ in Tagalog, is a useful forest product in general demand, on sale at every market-place and native general shop. It is a fibrous bark, taken in strips of 3 or 4 feet long. It looks exactly like cocoa-nut coir, except that its colour is a little lighter and brighter. It is used for cleansing the hair, for which purpose a handful is put to soak in a basin of water overnight, and the next morning it will saponify when rubbed between the hands. The soap which issues therefrom is then rubbed in the hair at the time of bathing. It is in common use among the natives of both s.e.xes and many Europeans. An infusion of _Gogo_ is a purgative. If placed dry in the _tinaja_ jars (Tagalog, _Tapayan_), containing cacao-beans, the insects will not attack the beans.
_Camote_ (_Convolvulus batatas_) is the sweet potato or Yam, the foliage of which quickly spreads out like a carpet over the soil and forms tubers, like the common potato. It is a favourite article of food among the natives, and in nearly every island it is also found wild. In kitchen-gardens it is planted like the potato, the tuber being cut in pieces. Sometimes it is dried (Tagalog, _Pac.u.mbong camote_). It is also preserved whole in mola.s.ses (Tagalog, _Palubog na camote_).
_Gabi_ (_Caladium_) is another kind of esculent root, palatable to the natives, similar to the turnip, and throws up stalks from 1 to 3 feet high, at the end of which is an almost round leaf, dark green, from 3 to 5 inches diameter at maturity.
_Potatoes_ are grown in Cebu Island, but they are rarely any larger than walnuts. With very special care a larger size has been raised in Negros Island; also potatoes of excellent flavour and of a pinkish colour are cultivated in the district of Benguet; in Manila there is a certain demand for this last kind.
_Mani_ (_Arachis hypogaea_), commonly called the ”Pea-nut,” is a creeping plant, which grows wild in many places. It is much cultivated, however, partly for the sake of the nut or fruit, but princ.i.p.ally for the leaves and stalks, which, when dried, even months old, serve as an excellent and nutritious fodder for ponies. It contains a large quant.i.ty of oil, and in some districts it is preferred to the fresh-cut _zacate_ gra.s.s, with which the ponies and cattle are fed in Manila.
The Philippine pea-nut is about as large as that seen in England. In 1904 the American Bureau of Agriculture brought to the Islands for seed a quant.i.ty of New Orleans pea-nuts two to three times larger.
_Areca Palm_ (_Areca calechu_) (Tagalog, _Bonga_), the nut of which is used to make up the chewing betel when split into slices about one-eighth of an inch thick. This is one of the most beautiful palms. The nuts cl.u.s.ter on stalks under the tuft of leaves at the top of the tall slender stem. It is said that one tree will produce, according to age, situation, and culture, from 200 to 800 nuts yearly. The nut itself is enveloped in a fibrous sh.e.l.l, like the cocoa-nut. In Europe a favourite dentifrice is prepared from the areca-nut.
_Buyo_ (_Piper betle_) (Tagalog, _Igmo_), is cultivated with much care in every province, as its leaf, when coated with lime made from oyster-sh.e.l.ls and folded up, is used to coil round the areca-nut, the whole forming the _buyo_ (betel), which the natives of these Islands, as in British India, are in the habit of chewing. To the chew a quid of tobacco is sometimes added. A native can go a great number of hours without food if he has his betel; it is said to be stomachical. After many years of habit in chewing this nut and leaf it becomes almost a necessity, as is the case with opium, and it is believed that its use cannot, with safety, be suddenly abandoned. To the newly-arrived European, it is very displeasing to have to converse with a native betel-eater, whose teeth and lips appear to be smeared with blood. The _buyo_ plant is set out on raised beds and trained (like hops) straight up on sticks, on which it grows to a height of about 6 feet. The leaf is of a bright green colour, and only slightly pointed. In all market-places, including those of Manila, there is a great sale of this leaf, which is brought fresh every day.
_Cocoanut_ (_Cocos nucifera_) plantations pay very well, and there is a certain demand for the fruit for export to China, besides the constant local sales in the _tianguis_. [143] _Niog_ is the Tagalog name for the cocoanut palm. Some tap the tree by making an incision in the flowering (or fruit-bearing) stalk, under which a bamboo vessel, called a _bombon_, is hung to receive the sap. This liquid, known as _tuba_, is a favourite beverage among the natives. As many as four stalks of the same trunk can be so drained simultaneously without injury to the tree. In the bottom of the _bombon_ is placed about as much as a desert spoonful of pulverized _Tongo_ bark (_Rhizophora longissima_) to give a stronger taste and bright colour to the _tuba_. The incision--renewed each time the _bombon_ is replaced--is made with a very sharp knife, to which a keen edge is given by rubbing it on wood (_Erythrina_) covered with a paste of ashes and oil. The sap-drawing of a stalk continues incessantly for about two months, when the stalk ceases to yield and dries up. The _bombons_ containing the liquid are removed, empty ones being put in their place every twelve hours, about sunrise and sunset, and the seller hastens round to his clients with the morning and evening draught, concluding his trade at the market-place or other known centres of sale. If the _tuba_ is allowed to ferment, it is not so palatable, and becomes an intoxicating drink. From the fermented juice the distilleries manufacture a spirituous liquor, known locally as cocoa-wine. The trees set apart for _tuba_ extraction do not produce nuts, as the fruit-forming elements are taken away.
The man who gets down the _tuba_ has to climb the first tree, on the trunk of which notches are cut to place his toes in. From under the tuft of leaves two bamboos are fastened, leading to the next nearest tree, and so on around the group which is thus connected. The bottom bamboo serves as a bridge, and the top one as a handrail. Occasionally a man falls from the top of a trunk 70 or 80 feet high, and breaks his neck. The occupation of _tuba_ drawing is one of the most dangerous.
When the tree is allowed to produce fruit, instead of yielding _tuba_, the nuts are collected about every four months. They are brought down either by a sickle-shaped knife lashed on to the end of a long pole, or by climbing the tree with the knife in hand. When they are collected for oil-extraction, they are carted on a kind of sleigh, [144] unless there be a river or creek providing a water-way, in which latter case they are tied together, stalk to stalk, and floated in a compact ma.s.s, like a raft, upon which the man in charge stands.
The water or milk found inside a cocoanut is very refres.h.i.+ng to the traveller, and has this advantage over fresh water, that it serves to quench the thirst of a person who is perspiring, or whose blood is highly heated, without doing him any harm.
Well-to-do owners of cocoanut-palm plantations usually farm out to the poorer people the right to extract the _tuba_, allotting to each family a certain number of trees. Others allow the trees to bear fruit, and although the returns are, theoretically, not so good, it pays the owner about the same, as he is less exposed to robbery, being able more closely to watch his own interests. The trees bear fruit in the fifth year, but, meanwhile, care must be taken to defend them from the browsing of cattle. If they survive that period they will live for a century. At seven years' growth the cocoanut palm-tree seldom fails to yield an unvarying average crop of a score of large nuts, giving a nett profit of about one peso per annum.
The cocoanut is largely used for culinary purposes in the Islands. It is an ingredient in the native ”curry” (of no resemblance to Indian curry), and is preserved in several ways, the most common being the _Bocayo_, a sort of cocoanut toffee, and the _Matamis na macapuno_, which is the soft, immature nut preserved in mola.s.ses.
In the Provinces of Tayabas, La Laguna, E. Batangas and district of La Infanta, the cocoanut-palm is extensively cultivated, solely for the purpose of extracting the oil from the nut. The cocoanut-oil factories are very rough, primitive establishments, usually consisting of eight or ten posts supporting a nipa palm-leaf roof, and closed in at all sides with split bamboos. The nuts are heaped for a while to dry and concentrate the oil in the fruit. Then they are chopped, more or less, in half. A man sits on a board with his feet on a treadle, from which a rope is pa.s.sed over, and works to and fro a cylindrical block, in the end of which is fixed an iron sc.r.a.per. He picks up the half-nuts one at a time, and on applying them to the sc.r.a.per in motion, the white fruit, or pith, falls out into a vessel underneath. These sc.r.a.pings are then pressed between huge blocks of wood to express the oil, and the ma.s.s is afterwards put into cast-iron cauldrons, of Chinese make, with water, which is allowed to simmer and draw out the remaining fatty particles, which are skimmed off the surface. When cold, it is sent off to market in small, straight-sided kegs, on ponies which carry two kegs--one slung on each side. The average estimated yield of the cocoanuts, by the native process, is as follows, viz.:--250 large nuts give one cwt. of dried coprah, yielding, say, 10 gallons of oil.
Small quant.i.ties of Cocoanut Oil (Tagalog, _Languis ng niog_) are s.h.i.+pped from the Philippines, but in the Colony itself it is an important article of consumption. Every dwelling, rich or poor, consumes a certain amount of this oil nightly for lighting. For this purpose it is poured into a gla.s.s half full of water, on which it floats, and a wick, made of pith, called _tinsin_, introduced by the Chinese, is suspended in the centre of the oil by a strip of tin. As the oil is consumed, the wick is lowered by slightly bending the tin downwards. There are few dwelling-houses, or huts, without a light of some kind burning during the whole night in expectation of a possible earthquake, and the vast majority use cocoanut oil because of the economy.
It is also in use for cooking in some out-of-the-way places, and is not unpalatable when quite fresh. It is largely employed as a lubricant for machinery, for which purpose, however, it is very inferior. Occasionally it finds a medicinal application, and the natives commonly use it as hair-oil. In Europe, cocoa-nut oil is a white solid, and is used in the manufacture of soap and candles; in the tropics it is seldom seen otherwise than in a liquid state, as it fuses a little above 70 Fahr.
It is only in the last few years that Coprah has acquired importance as an article of export. There are large cocoanut plantations on all the princ.i.p.al islands, whence supplies are furnished to meet the foreign demand, which is likely to increase considerably.
For figures of _Coprah_ s.h.i.+pments, _vide_ Chap. x.x.xi., ”Trade Statistics.”
Uses are also found for the hard Sh.e.l.l of the nut (Tagalog, _Baoo_). In native dwellings these sh.e.l.ls serve the poor for cups (_tabo _) and a variety of other useful domestic utensils, whilst by all cla.s.ses they are converted into ladles with wooden handles. Also, when carbonized, the sh.e.l.l gives a black, used for dyeing straw hats.
Very little use is made of the Coir (Tagalog, _Bunot_), or outer fibrous skin, which in other countries serves for the manufacture of cocoanut matting, coa.r.s.e brushes, hawsers, etc. It is said that coir rots in fresh water, whereas salt water strengthens it. It would therefore be unsuitable for running rigging, but for s.h.i.+ps'
cables it cannot be surpa.s.sed in its qualities of lightness and elasticity. As it floats on water, it ought to be of great value on s.h.i.+ps, whilst of late years its employment in the manufacture of light ocean telegraph cables has been seriously considered, showing, as it does, an advantage over other materials by taking a convex curve to the water surface--an important condition in cable-laying. [145]
The Spaniards call this product _Banote_. In this Colony it often serves for cleaning floors and s.h.i.+ps' decks, when the nut is cut into two equal parts across the grain of the coir covering, and with it a very high polish can be put on to hardwoods.
The stem of the Cocoanut Palm is attacked by a very large beetle with a single horn at the top of its head. It bores through the bark and slightly injures the tree, but I never heard that any had died in consequence. In some countries this insect is described as the rhinoceros beetle, and is said to belong to the _Dynastidae_ species.
In the Philippines, the poorest soil seems to give nourishment to the cocoanut-palm; indeed, it thrives best on, or near, the sea-sh.o.r.e, as close to the sea as where the beach is fringed by the surf at high tide. The common cocoanut-palm attains a height of about sixty feet, but there is also a dwarf palm with the stem sometimes no taller than four feet at full growth, which also bears fruit, although less plentifully. A grove of these is a pretty sight.