[Mountain rice.] Mountain-rice culture, which in Catbalogan is almost the only cultivation, requires no other implement of agriculture than the bolo to loosen the soil somewhat, and a sharp stick for making holes at distances of six inches for the reception of five or six grains of rice.  Sowing is done from May to June, weeding twice, and five months later it is cut stalk by stalk; the reaper receiving half a real daily wages and food.  The produce is between two and three cabanes per ganta, or fifty to seventy fold.  The land costs nothing, and wages amount to nearly five reals per ganta of seed-corn.  After a good harvest the caban fetches four reales; but just before the harvest the price rises to one dollar, and often much higher.  The ground is used only once for dry rice; camote (batata), abaca, and caladium being planted on it after the harvest.  Mountain rice is more remunerative than watered rice about in the proportion of nine to eight.

[Other products.] Next to rice the principal articles of sustenance are camote (convolvulus batatas), ubi (dioscorea), gabi (caladium), palauan (a large arum, with taper leaves and spotted stalk).  Camote can be planted all the year around, and ripens in four months; but it takes place generally when the rice culture is over, when little labor is available.  When the cultivation of camote is retained, the old plants are allowed to multiply their runners, and only the tubers are taken out of the ground.  But larger produce is obtained by cleaning out the ground and planting anew.  From eighteen to fifteen gantas may be had for half a real.

[Abaca.] Although there are large plantations of abaca, during my visit it was but little cultivated, the price not being sufficiently remunerative.

[Tobacco.] Tobacco also is cultivated.  Formerly it might be sold in the country, but now it has to be delivered to the government.

[Balao oil.] A resinous oil (balao or malapajo) is found in Samar and Albay, probably also in other provinces.  It is obtained from a dipterocarpus (apiton), one of the loftiest trees of the forest, by cutting in the trunk a wide hole, half a foot deep, hollowed out into the form of a basin, and from time to time lighting a fire in it, so as to free the channels, through which it flows, of obstructions.  The oil thus is collected daily and comes into commerce without any further preparation.  Its chief application is in the preservation of iron in shipbuilding.  Nails dipped in the oil of the balao, before being driven in, will, as I have been assured by credible individuals, defy the action of rust for ten years; but it is principally used as a varnish for ships, which are painted with it both within and without, and it also protects wood against termites and other insects.  The balao is sold in Albay at four reals for the tinaja of ten gantas (the liter at eight pence).  A cement formed by the mixture of burnt lime, gum elemi, and coconut oil, in such proportions as to form