ertainly varies very much; but, when it is considered
that the land in the Philippines is never fertilized, but depends,
for the maintenance of its vitality, exclusively upon the overflowing
of the mud which is washed down from the mountains, it may be believed
that the first numbers better express the true average. In Java the
harvest, in many provinces, amounts to only 50 cavanes per quinon;
in some, indeed, to three times this amount; and in China, with the
most careful culture and abundant manure, to 180 cabanes. [110]
[Sweet potatoes.] Besides rice, they cultivate the camote (sweet
potato, Convolvulus batatas). This flourishes like a weed; indeed,
it is sometimes planted for the purpose of eradicating the weeds from
soil intended for coffee or cacao. It spreads out into a thick carpet,
and is an inexhaustible storehouse to its owner, who, the whole year
through, can supply his wants from his field. Gabi (Caladium), Ubi
(Dioscorea), maize, and other kinds of grain, are likewise cultivated.

[Cattle and horses.] After the rice harvest the carabaos, horses, and
bullocks, are allowed to graze in the fields. During the rice culture
they remain in the gogonales, cane-fields which arise in places once
cultivated for mountain-rice and afterwards abandoned. (Gogo is the
name of a cane 7 to 8 feet high, Saccharum sp.). Transport then is
almost impossible, because during the rainy season the roads are
impassable, and the cattle find nothing to eat. The native does
not feed his beast, but allows it to die when it cannot support
itself. In the wet season of the year it frequently happens that a
carabao falls down from starvation whilst drawing a cart. A carabao
costs from $7 to $10; a horse $10 to $20; and a cow $6 to $8. Very fine
horses are valued at from $30 to $50, and occasionally as much as $80;
but the native horses are not esteemed in Manila, because they have no
stamina. The bad water, the bad hay, and the great heat of the place at
once point out the reason; otherwise it would be profitable to export
horses in favorable seasons to Manila, where they would fetch twice
their value. According to Morga, there were neither horses nor asses
on the Island until the Spaniards imported them from China and New
Spain. [111] They were at first small and vicious. Horses were imported
also from Japan, "not swift but powerful, with large heads and thick
manes, looking like Friesland horses;" [112] and the breed improved
rapidly. T