A step toward self sufficiency -- eggs

Title

Language

English

Source

The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVIII (Issue No. 6) June 1938

Year

1938

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

12 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1938 MANILA HOTEL (Aristocrat of the Orient) A Step Toward Self Sufficiency—Eggs Situated on a reserve property of some three hectares, with Burham Green as a background: facing the historic Luneta on the south; gorgeous Manila Bay on the west, the old Spanish city on the north, and Modern Manila on the east. .. the location is incomparable; a setting hardly to be found in other world ports. PREFERRED by world travelers because of its luxurious appointments and culinary excel lence, the Manila Hotel enjoys the patronage of the elite, both local and foreign. Special Features The suites in the air-conditioned annex are de luxe, period and modern in style, furnishings and decoration: Spanish.. .Louis XVI... Old Eng lish. . .Filipino:. .Chinese.. .Modernistic... Neo Classic. .. American Colonial... Ultra-Modern. Other Attractions . Air-conditioned Grand Banquet Hall and Ballroom, Dao Room, and Oak Room for private parties. . Continental Bar . 19th Hole Bar . Cocktail Lounge . Open-air Dancing Pavilion . Swimming Pool . Palm Court Terrace. MANILA HOTEL (Aristocrat of the Orient) When the poorest cottagers in the provinces offer you hospitality, as in this Commonwealth they in variably do on the slightest hint, one dish you are sure of having set before you is eggs. This has al ways been true, with the eggs in such instances usually fresh, yet it is only in the past few years that here in town (and in other port ci ties such as Iloilo and Cebu) have many of the eggs sold at the mar kets come from the provinces. Theretofore the market egg and that at the grocery came from China and were strong of taste and odor and never fresh. As late as 1930 the Islands sent China a million dollars gold, for eggs on which the duty was $50,000. Two things have changed all this, better poultry flocks and better means of reaching the city markets. Fast steamships now enable Cebu to help supply Manila’s markets with eggs and chickens, and chickens have there fore become a considerable Cebu provincial industry. Busses and faster trains from the provinces of Luzon render the peasants a similar service, getting chickens to Manila comfortably and bringing in the eggs thorough ly fresh. So the picture has altogether changed from what it was ten years ago, and now the Islands do not send China as much as $125,000 a year for eggs. Chicken breeding at the Alabang Stock Farm of the Bureau of Agriculture has also popularized imported breeds of chickens, led by white leghorns and cantonese, and a new breed or two have been evolved in the Islands. Chicken breeding is given the attention it deserves at the College of Agriculture at Los Banos, but perhaps as great a factor as any other is the chicken raising classes in the public schools. A constant stimulant has been the annual Philippine Exposition (carnival) at Manila. Here both patented and homemade equipment for hatching, brood ing and feeding chicks has won the peasants’ attention, and countless publications on the feeding and care of chickens have been freely distributed—a work of the gov ernment. So at last the Commonwealth supplies itself its own eggs with exception of a small supply of bakers eggs still coming from China. Consumption of eggs has mounted accordingly, the customer at any good eating place down to the restaurant serving a 60-centavo lunch is always sure of fresh wholesome eggs and goes in for them more and more. Housewives who enjoy going to market are pleased with the honest arrangements about eggs. The market women classify them by size, the provinces they come from, and their freshness; and as you buy every egg counted into your sack is candled before your eyes, with the privilege reserved to you of claiming replacements if any should prove stale. This egg selling is one particu lar thing in which Manila’s public markets are far ad vanced. Supplementing provincial supplies are numerous chicken farms in the nearest environments of town, San Juan del Monte, San Francisco del Monte, San Felipe Neri, Pasay, and Santa Ana as well as Mandaluyong. Proprietors here who commonly breed American chickens IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OE COMMERCE JOURNAL June, 1938 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 13 and bring feed for them from California, to go with what is best here, supply clubs, hotels, apartments and such special cus tomers large fresh eggs of which the most squeamish patrons could not complain. It is rapid transportation that enables this to happen in the tropics. The farms have refrigerators where the eggs are chilled as soon as they arc gathered, and they reach you in dozen lot cartons proudly bearing the farm name. Sewing Machine. . . (Continued from page 8) American period began. The character credit that now underlies nearly all its transactions, as this pa|x?r has described, has been worked out through forty years of prosperous experience. There is no gamble in it, either—the company knows it will be paid: the only discount for cash in lieu of 1’5 payments a month is 20'4. These remarks apply to one of the largest businesses in the commonwealth, carried on with its poorest citizens. Manila’s Local. . . (Continued from page 11) tions year to year in these average weights are negligible. Besides these animals (carabaos, cattle, and hogs) a few sheep and goats are slaughtered, and some 12,000 suckling pigs whose fate is to be roasted on the spit either at the markets or for home parties, and picnics, never complete if roast suckling pig is absent, the Islands’ lechov, probably as productive of chronic and acute gastric maladies as any single factor in the pop ular diet. No one should ever dare eat reddish pork, though suckling pig it may be, a caution that will be wasted on Fili pinos until their health officers and scien tists associate the practice with their high mortality rate. Even at the markets where the charcoal fires emit intense even heat, suckling pig is seldom roasted well. But it is eagerly devoured just the same. Gastric maladies, especially of children, come on in June and July and are commonly blamed to the rains where it might be more worth while to trace them to their more logical source, May’s long festivals and roast suck ling pig. NO PIECES-OF-EIGHT? When American forces under Major Gen eral Wesley Merritt occupied Manila Aug ust 13, 1898, Jose Luis Maury was the Islands’ general treasurer from whom on August 24 the funds at the treasury were seized. Not taken up as revenue, these funds were held for whatever disposition Congress should wish to make of them. In all this there can be little present in terest, but the physical character of some of the items listed is amusing. Four-peso gold pieces summed $4,200. Spanish-Filipino and Mexican silver coins summed $129,632.21. There were 162 sacks of copper coins said to contain $50 each. These were supplemented by 1,928 boxes of like coins said to contain $150 each. Among items at the mint, receipted for to the director, Jose Pereyra y Pereyra, were 30 sacks of Mexican dollars each con taining $1,000, and 29 sacks of half-pesos Gold bars and small pieces of gold summed S3 806 08. About $4,000 in three items, bagged, were taken over under receipt at the Avuntamiento, and almost $25,000 at the internal revenue office, while the civil gov ernor, Jose Bueren, .Tuan de Mer, Conde de Gra. and Eugemo Caurino, official pay master at the governor’s office, turned over $956.02 in fondos locales. Banknotes were not. then in popular cir culation. They were of the Banco-EsnanolFilipino (now the Bank of t.he Philinnine Islands), then the sole bank of issue. Silver was the popular currency, and sacks a common means of carrying it about. Bank notes at the treasury summed less than $200,000; there were also two checks, sum ming just over $170,000. The tradition that a quantity of quick silver was found at the mint is apocryphal. There is no record of it, and since the smallest items of what really was found are carefully listed, it simply was not there. IN RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OE COMMERCE JOURNAL

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