Growing upland rice in Western Negros

Title

Language

English

Source

The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVII (Issue No.4) April 1937

Year

1937

Rights

In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted

Fulltext

April, 1937 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL 13 Growing Upland Rice in Western Negros Two practices prevail in Occidental Negros in the cultiva tion of upland rice; one, by administration, the other the well-known share-cropping system. I shall say nothing of the administration system. Under it, as everyone knows, the planter gets the whole crop except he be leasing the land; if he leases the land, the owner receives a percentage of the crop, and just what this percentage should be has not been determined in the central and noithern part of Occi dental Negros to which my observations are limited. Under the share system the procedure is as follows: The landlord prepares the fields very carefully, plowing them two to three times, usually with gang-disc plows, and harrowing them an equal number of times, pre ferably with a disc harrow. The soil being thus thoroughly prepared, the share-cropper seeds it with seed provided by the landlord, 10 to 12 gantas to the hectare; the cropper plows out the rows and plants them, and takes all care of the crop until it has matured. This is all at the crop per’s expense; the landlord furnishes the fertilizer, but the cropper applies it. Harvesters are extra help, paid a portion of the crop. Less this pay in kind, it is the obligation of the cropper to warehouse all the rice cut in any one day. The day following, this rice is threshed. In this province, threshing is done by trampling; the crews that do this usually receive 1 cavan out of. 15 of the threshed rice. When the rice is threshed and the portion of the threshers is taken out, the rice is usually divided immediately between the landlord and the cropper—two thirds to the landlord and one third to the cropper. Impartial observations during four years have demonstrated that this division of the crop is eminently equitable, as will be seen in the following table based on production of 50 cavans of unhulled rice per hectare: Planter: Cost of Preparation Two plowings with tractor. Two harrowings................... Seed....................................... • Described by Vicente V. Gamboa in The Sugar Cane Planter. Methods of cultivation are thorough Fertilizer, Total, per hectare......................................... Two thirds of 50 cavans (33 cavans and 8-1/2 gantas) at 1*2.50 per cavan........................... Less planters’ expenses, above........................... P16.00 4.00 0.40 25.00 P45.40 1*83.35 45.40 1*37.95 Cropper: Cost of Seeding and Cultivating Seeding............................................ Weeding, etc............................... Applying fertilizer. . . . Cultivating, one time. Transportation.......... Total........................................... One third of 50 cavans (16 cavans and 16-1/2 gantas) at 1*2.50 per cavan Less expenses, above....................... Cropper’s gain 1*12.70 1*41.65 12.70 1*28.95 The landlord’s gain of 1*8 more than the crop per in every 50 cavans, taken as the harvest to be divided between them from each hectare after harvesters and threshers are paid, is justified, we think, by the greater capital the landlord risks and the greater loss he suffers when bad seasons affect the harvest. To the end that the yield respond to the effort exerted by the planter, whether lessee or owner, in the preparation of the soil, it is al ways stipulated that the cultivation, and the quantity of fer tilizer and manner of its application, be under the direction and supervision of the planter. The divers varieties of upland rice grown in Occidental Ne gros are of the first quality; very white, aromatic, and finetasting. They are popularly called bisqya. Being iu demand, the price varies from 1*3.50 to 1*4.50 for the cavan of 44 ki lograms, though as yet there is no general market for their sale to the public and sales are made among the rich families. Our Plight . . . {Continued from page 11) Denmark, who has had to change her modus vivendi completely since 1870, puts a new feather in her cap when she reclothes 3% of her area with forest, to make a total of 9%. Then the comparative productivity of forests. Why, the very minor products of ours would, if exploited, return more by themselves than all that may be gathered from a northern forest anywhere. In short, the more our actual lot is com pared with that of other men in other climes, what may come upon us in 1938 or 1939, or eight years hence when the Com monwealth ends, seems entirely within the bounds of human endurance. Not that what is wrong and harmful should not be vigorously opposed, only that despair should not be countenanced. America will not see the Islands go under, the new High Commissioner says; and adds, economic inde pendence first. This is something very different from, and infinitely better than, most of the proximate political horizons throughout the world. Let us stop now. To go farther would make us feel abso lutely smug. Sixty-two Oldtime . . . (Continued from page 9) pino pension and keeps paying on this account, mainly in the Philippines, more than $2,000,000 a year,: Filipino Scouts, retired................................ $900,000 Naval Personnel, Filipino, retired................... 587,958 Other enlisted Filipinos, U. S. N., retired in Hawaii and the United States........... 100,000 Filipinos retired from the U. S. civil service.. 550,000 To tai per year from U.S. Treasury to Filipinos $2,137,958 So far as is known, the United States has never moved to evade these contractual obligations on any grounds what ever. She keeps paying them as a matter of course, and does not even move to pay them out of any taxes collected in the United States on Philippine products sold and tax able there; on the contrary, she keeps remitting these collec tions to the Philippine treasury, including the excise collec tions on Philippine cigars sold in the United States—-which in a single year are several times the $65,000 tne Common wealth would need yearly to keep the American teachers’ pensions undisturbed.

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13

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