ay from the continent and set them out six hundred miles as "gems
in the ocean." More than three thousand there are of these islands all
together, and their combined area is nearly equal to that of Japan or
California. I visited the Philippines a short time before the world war
broke out and at that time there were seven million acres of arable land
unoccupied and some of it could be entered and purchased for ten cents
per acre.

This is a land where the storms of winter never blow but where from
month to month and age to age there is good old summer time. Children
are born, grow to manhood, old age, and die without ever seeing fire to
keep them warm for they never need it. A range of twenty degrees is
about all that the spirits in the thermometer ever show, for the minimum
is seventy-two and the maximum ninety-two degrees. While the nights are
cool and the days warm, yet a case of sunstroke was never known and but
once in a generation has a hundred in the shade been recorded.

About the most unpleasant feature is the little tiny ants. They find
their way into everything. Table legs must be placed in jars of water
and yet they find their way to the top of the tables. Then there is
dampness everywhere. Books soon become mildewed or unglued and the
finest library will soon have the appearance of a secondhand bookshop.

Almost all kinds of tropical fruits can be raised in the Philippines. I
drove out from Manila to the home of Mr. Lyon, who is a regular Burbank.
He located on some of the worst soil to be found and undertook to
demonstrate that anything that will grow on any spot on the earth will
grow there and he practically succeeded. He has sent to India,
California, Egypt and nearly everywhere for the rarest orchids and most
delicate plants. To eat of the fruits of every kind of tree and hear him
tell the story of plants and shrubs and trees in his Garden of Eden is
an experience one cannot forget.

The story of how these islands came into our possession is still fresh
and vivid in the memory of thousands. Spanish cruelty had reached the
climax and Admiral Dewey was commanded to "find the Spanish fleet and
sink it to the bottom of the sea." As the great ship upon which I went
into and out of this harbor plowed the waves I lived over again that
marvelous May day in 1898. It was one of the great days in our history.
As the fleet entered the harbor word came to the flagship that they were
entering a territory covered w