“Coffee planting is largely engaged in, returning from ten to fifteen per cent. on capital.  Improved transportation facilities, abolition of export dues and the consolidation of small estates would, doubtless, help toward better results.  This crop is marketed in Europe—­London, Havre and Barcelona—­where better prices are obtainable than in New York.  With the exception of a few plantations in strong hands, most of this property could be purchased at a fair valuation, and would prove to be a very profitable investment.

“Cocoa grows wild on the lowlands, but has not been cultivated to any appreciable extent.  Small consignments sent to Europe have been pronounced superior to the Caracas bean.  The tree takes a longer period than coffee to come to maturity and bear fruit; but once in bearing the current expenses are less and the yield far greater.  The same remarks apply to the cultivation of rubber, which, although a most profitable staple with an ever-increasing market, has received no attention whatever.

“Corn is raised in quantities insufficient for home consumption.  Of this cereal three crops can be obtained in two years; sometimes two a year.  The demand is constant, and the price always remunerative.

“In Porto Rico, as in most other West Indian islands, sugar is king.  In the treatment of this product the lack of capital has been sadly felt.  Planters possess only the most primitive machinery, and in the extraction of the juice from the cane the proportion of saccharine matter has been exceedingly small.  Great outlay is necessary for the installation of a complete modern crushing and centrifugal plant.”

A flattering picture of our new possessions is drawn in McClure’s Magazine, by Mr. George B. Waldron.

“Here, then, are Cuba and Porto Rico in the Atlantic, and the Hawaiian and Philippine groups in the Pacific, whose destiny has become intertwined with our own.  Their combined area is 168,000 square miles, equaling New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey.  Their population is about 10,000,000, or perhaps one-half of that of these nine home States.  The Philippines, with three-quarters of the entire population, and Porto Rico, with 800,000 people, alone approach our own Eastern States in density.  Cuba, prior to the war, was about as well populated as Virginia, and the Hawaiian group is as well peopled as Kansas.  What, then, can these islands do for us?

“Americans use more sugar in proportion to population than any other nation of the world.  The total consumption last year was not less than 2,500,000 tons.  This is enough to make a pyramid that would overtop the tallest pyramid of Egyptian fame.  Of this total, 2,200,000 tons came from foreign countries, the Spanish possessions and Hawaii sending about twenty-five per cent.  Five years earlier, when our imports were less by half a million tons, these islands supplied double this quantity, or nearly two-thirds of the nation’s entire sugar import.  But that was before Cuba had been devastated by war and when she was exporting 1,100,000 tons of sugar to other countries.  Restore Cuba to her former fertility, and the total sugar crop of these islands will reach 1,500,000 tons, or two-thirds our present foreign demand.”