A PORTO RICO FOREST RESERVE 



Characteristic Tropical Forest and 

 the Uses to Which it Can be Put 



HPHAT one of our national forest re- 

 serves is in Porto Rico is a fact of 

 which very few people in the United 

 States are aware. Yet both in the ex- 

 traordinary variety of botanical spe- 

 cies which its forests contain and in 

 the picturesqueness and novelty of its 

 scenery this reserve stands second to 

 none of those in our western states, 

 while it has the unique distinction of 

 being the only tropical forest which 

 this country owns on this side of the 

 globe. 



The Luquillo reserve was set aside 

 ated by Presidential proclamation in 

 January, 1903. It embraces some 65,- 

 <)5O acres of land in the eastern and 

 most mountainous part of the island. 

 Compared with most of the western 

 reserves this is small. But the whole 

 island of Porto Rico is only about 

 three-quarters the size of Connecticut 

 and consequently offers no room for a 

 large reserve. 



Teh Luquillo reserve w r as set aside 

 from certain public lands in Porto 

 Rico which were formerly the proper- 

 ty of the Spanish government. It is 

 joined by private holdings and also to 

 some extent by lands the title to which 

 is now vested in the insular govern- 

 ment, which is possessed of all lands 

 not reserved by the federal govern- 

 ment before June 30, 1903. The whole 

 region within which the reserve lies 

 has never been surveyed or accurately 

 mapped, and the boundaries between 

 the private and public holdings are 

 very vague and undefined. In prac- 

 tice the agriculturists to whom the pri- 

 vate lands belong have pushed their 

 clearings as far up the mountain sides 

 as it was profitable for them to go, and 

 have helped themselves more or less to 

 whatever timber they needed from the 

 accessible forest beyond. These dep- 

 redations have not been, on the whole, 



very serious, owing to the tropical 

 character of the forest and the difficul- 

 ties of transportation, but the exact 

 definition of the line between the re- 

 serve and the adjoining private owners 

 is a pressing need. 



To secure information concerning 

 present conditions and a basis for rec- 

 ommendations to the insular govern- 

 ment for a future policy, Dr. John C. 

 Gifford was sent by the Bureau of 

 Forestry, in the summer of 1903, to 

 make an examination of the reserve. 

 He found that only about 20,000 acres 

 are forest lands unclaimed by private 

 owners, and half of this is in mountain 

 peaks and palm lands, so that there are 

 only 10,000 acres of productive timber. 

 Nevertheless, the whole reserve stands 

 in an important relation to the eco- 

 nomic welfare of the people who live 

 near it, and the benefits of its estab- 

 lishment will be increasingly manifest 

 as time goes on. 



Even to the natives the region em- 

 braced in the reserve is little known. 

 It is a small wilderness of serrated 

 mountains, tropical forest, and rushing 

 torrential streams, concerning which 

 all sorts of fantastic fables find cur- 

 rency. It covers a large part of the 

 Sierra de Luquillo, a mountain mass 

 separated from the mountains of the 

 rest of the island by the valley of the 

 Loiza, the largest river in Porto Rico. 

 One of its peaks. El Yunque. is the 

 highest mountain of the island, with 

 an altitude of some 3,300 feet. Upon 

 the eastern slopes of these mountains, 

 which face the sea, the westward- 

 blowing trade winds pour an enor- 

 mous precipitation, the heaviest in the 

 island. In 1902 the total was almost 

 142 inches. This rainfall is well dis- 

 tributed throughout the year. In the 

 highest mountains it is rare for twelve 

 hours to pass without some rain. As 



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