will pardon me, I trust, if, in briefly discussing the present outcome of the soil, I let my imagination, trained and curbed by an extended experience, suggest at the same time what the wonderfully fertile lands of Guatemala might yield, properly cultivated. While I will endeavor to guard myself from all exag

Indian Plough; a Type of Guatemaltecan Agriculture.

geration, I cannot conceal from myself the fact that those not familiar with tropical luxuriance of growth and fruitfulness will not fully acquit me of this fault so generally charged to travellers.

Sugar-cane. Arranging the products to be described, not in a scientific order, but in that sequence which their commercial importance seems to suit, sugar-cane easily leads; and this in spite of the difficulties of the labor supply, which I deem of more importance than the artificial competition of the very inferior sugar-beet. It is a bold assertion that no country or climate is better suited to the culture of sugar-cane. I have watched the growth of four of the choicest varieties1 of cane side by side with that usually cultivated on the Atlantic coast (Bourbon), compared this with the growth of cane in Louisiana, the West Indies, Guiana, the Hawaiian Islands, India, the East Indies, Egypt, and the Mauritius, and I have ascertained the cost of cultivation, expense of living, yield and freight of product 1 Lahaina, Salangore, Elephant, Ribbon.

to market, in all these various centres of sugar-production, in a much more elaborate way than would be in place to record in this book.

At present the sugar-plantations of any importance are on the Pacific side of Guatemala, although some, as that of San Geronimo, near Salamà, are in the high interior. The valley of the Michatoya is full of small

plantations, or ingenios. From the Pacific ports was exported in 1883, 44,927.27 cwt. of sugar, valued at $223,136.35; in 1884, about 7,000 cwt. less. The home consumption of sugar is very great, and most of that raised in the Department of Chiquimula is not exported. Much of the manufacture is by the rudest wooden mills, and the sugar resembles the poorest quality of maplesugar; it is cooled in wooden blocks in hemispherical

form, and comes to market wrapped in corn husks, when it is called panela.

That the sugar production may be better understood, I give the statistics for 1883, as published by the Government. A finca is a plantation; a manzana equals an acre and three quarters, more or less; an arroba weighs twenty-five pounds, and a quintal one hundred pounds.

While this table is by no means exact, it shows fairly the amount of saccharine products and their distribution. It is curious to note how many very small plantations are reported from the Department of Huehuetenango yielding almost exclusively the coarse panela. In Chiquimula the large proportion of sugar is due to foreign enterprise. There the cane-fields are capable of irrigation from the Hondo or other streams, and the cane

is chiefly a small red variety. Escuintla and Jalapa have nearly the same area of cane planted, but the former, by superior machinery, produces forty times the amount of sugar, and ten times as much panela. The cultivation at present is almost confined to burying the seed-cane and trashing, that is, stripping the lower leaves twice in a season. In the rich valleys of the Atlantic, cane will grow nine feet in as many months, will yield four tons of sugar to the acre, will rattoon freely for twenty years without replanting, and may be ground during nine months of the year. Much of the product of the cane is in Guatemala converted into aguardiente, or rum. With the exception of the experimental plantation to which I have referred, I know of no sugar fincas in northern Guatemala, although there are several in similar situations in British Honduras.

It is a well-known saying in this part of the world that "Wherever mahogany will grow, there every tropical product will flourish; and wherever logwood grows, there you can produce the finest rice." Cane certainly is no exception to this rule.

Coffee. Second on the list may be placed coffee, both from the importance of the present product, and from its very excellent quality. On the coast the Liberian coffee flourishes, and as the berries do not drop as soon as ripe, the trouble of harvesting is much lessened. Most of the crop exported from Livingston goes to England, and it has up to the present time been difficult to obtain the best quality, except through England. In 1883, 404,069.39 cwt. of a value (at twelve cents) of $4,848,832.68 were exported. On this the Government levies a tax, varying year by year, proportioned to the harvest.

The present importance of the coffee interest is shown.

by the following table of the coffee crop, commencing October, 1883, and ending June, 1884

If the figures of this table are correct, the average yield throughout the republic is 0.82 lb. per tree; in Escuintla .65 lb.; in Santa Rosa .60; in Guatemala 1.5; in Quezaltenango and Peten the same; in Alta Verapaz .75; and in San Marcos .40,- figures which show a very large number of non-bearing trees.

Coffee is planted in the shade, and the young plants require the protection of banana or other trees until well established. Plants are set ten feet apart each way, and topped when about six feet high. The Liberian variety is large beaned, and although of a lower price than the best Arabian, is more prolific, and in the lower lands, where the latter does not do well, is certainly more profitable.1

1 Even at nine cents per pound it pays as well as the best Jamaica at fourteen cents.