Editorial note — PART II

Comyn gives similar tables for the production of indigo and rice, estimating the net profit thereon at 57 and 60 per cent respectively. He adds, on the margin of the sheet: “In favorable years the profit of the grower is wont to increase in an extraordinary manner. The 4,000 shoots of sugar-cane, for instance, yield him 3 tareas, or 28 loaves of sugar, in place of the 14 loaves which were figured in the comparative estimate preceding; the cavan of seed yields 80 and even 100 cavans of rice in the hull, in place of the 35 computed; and he obtains a quintal of indigo from 15, or even from 10, balsadas, instead of 25 being necessary for furnishing the said product. And if the grower is fairly well-to-do, so that he can send his produce to the general market, and sell it to the foreign merchants or ship-captains who come for these products, he can obtain incomparably more for them than by delivering them upon the ground to the middlemen. At Manila I have seen indigo from La Laguna sold at the rate of 130 pesos a quintal for extra fine grade, and at 100 pesos for the usual quality; sugar, at 4p. 5r. a loaf; and palay (or rice in the hull) at 3 pesos; but I have preferred to limit myself to a low rate in the selling price which I have assigned to the aforesaid products in the preceding estimates, in order to demonstrate more thoroughly the advantages which agriculture offers in Filipinas, and at the same time to conform to practical experience in the formation of estimates of this sort.” Cf. similar estimates by Mallat (Philippines, ii, pp. 256–281.—Eds. ↑