asteful in certain fibers. The colors obtained are
only fairly fast in the light, however, and it is probable that the
new coal tar dyes will be faster and cheaper. In point of durability,
sabutan mats would be superior to all others produced in the Islands
if woven of double straws. In price they now vary from forty centavos
to thirty pesos, the ordinary ones bringing from P1.50 to P2.50.

If the industry is to be preserved intact, however, something must
be done to give it vitality, for the weavers know from experience
of neighboring towns that more money can be made from weaving hats
than in the fabrication of mats, and they will naturally change to
the more remunerative article. Unlike most other weaving industries,
the craft has not as yet been organized in Tanay. The production of
mats has been more or less haphazard, with but little supervision by
any person resembling the broker usually connected with household
industries. The weaver on completing a mat sells it in the market
or to some storekeeper. Up to the present time, the chief trade in
these mats has been at Antipolo in May during the "romeria" or annual
pilgrimage to the shrine of the Virgin of Antipolo. Certain persons
in Tanay have made it a practice to gather up a store of mats and
take them to Antipolo for sale there during the fiesta. A few of them
are on sale in Manila and in neighboring provinces. Of late, however,
persons have appeared who are taking up the industry more thoroughly
as brokers and it is to be hoped that the workers will be organized
into some better system for production than now exists. There is a
large opportunity not only for supervision but also for division of
labor. At present the men of the house cut the leaves, and each weaver
(all the weavers are women) carries out the rest of the process. There
would be a considerable saving of time if certain persons devoted
themselves to the preparation of the gray straw, and the dyeing were
left entirely to certain other workers. In this way the weavers of the
mats would be engaged only in the actual fabrication of the article
and much time would be saved to them. [13]

Planting, maturing, and yield of sabutan.--The plants from which the
straw mats at Tanay are made are set out in plots near the houses of
the workers. The suckers are planted in April at the beginning of the
rainy season, and, while it is always stated that straw prepared from
the leaves grown in the shade is best for