their own food of rice, sugarcane, and yams on the same rocks for the Moros to take. This was the beginning of trade between the Subanon and the Moros. The coming of the Moros to Zamboanga was recorded to have taken place in 1380, and trade between the two has been going on for hundreds of years. The Subanon have maintained barter with the coastal people because of the difficulties encountered in a subsistence type of agriculture. Even with plenty of land available in earlier times, the backbreaking toil involved in kaingin or swidden farming, the lack of sufficient agricultural implements, and an apparently wasteful exploitation of resources which led to deforestation of Zamboanga forest as early as the 19th century kept the Subanon economy at a constant level of subsistence. On top of this, the Subanon planter had to contend with low prices for their agricultural products in the barter trade. Finley (1913), observing Subanon agricultural methods, remarked that these were inefficient, and "not profitable either to the government or to the hill people". Sometimes there are crop failures, as a result of drought or infestation by pests. Lacking rice, the Subanon resort to gathering buri and lumbia or lumbay, which are palm types with a pith along the entire length that is a rich source of starchy flour. This is extracted and processed into food. The Subanon can also gather sago in the forests, particularly along the riverbanks, for their flour. There are also varieties of wild edible roots in the woodlands. Where orchards, gardens, and small plantations are cultivated, squash, eggplant, melons, bananas, papayas, pineapples, jackfruit, and lanzones provide the Subanon additional food. In some coastal settlements, the Subanon have been known to cultivate coconuts for food and for trading purposes. They also grow hemp or abaca, and use the fiber for making ropes, weaving cloth, or exchanging for finished products in the barter trade. Casal (1986) refers to the Subanon of Sindangan Bay in Zamboanga del Norte as "possibly the most rice-conscious" of all Philippine groups, because of their marked preference for rice above all other staples, as well as the amount of labor and attention they devote to their rice lands. Before the rice harvest in September, the Subanon subsist on root crops and bananas. The relationship between natural phenomena and the agricultural cycle is well established in the folk knowledge of the Sindangan Subanon.