PORTO RICO EXPERIMENT STATION. 391 



LABOR. 



The labor problem is one which the Northern man will find more or 

 less perplexing. While the wages of laborers are low, it is doubtful 

 after all if it will be found cheap. The agricultural laborer in Porto 

 Rico is as a rule ignorant and unskilled. He has no interest in the 

 work he is performing for his employer, and consequently requires 

 constant supervision, otherwise he will either not work or will do 

 things wrong. He has no desire to rise in the world or to accumulate 

 a small property, even for a home, and when he gets a few days' wages 

 ahead he prefers to stop work until he has spent them. There is much 

 to be done in improving the energy and skill of the agricultural laborer. 

 There are great numbers of men who know how to do nothing but 

 wield a machete or a hoe. Many of them have never driven an ox 

 team or harnessed a horse, and to do the latter properly would for 

 them be an absolute impossibility. The training of these ignorant 

 people in the use of the spade, scythe, ax, pruning knife, spraying 

 apparatus, and the operation of hand and horse machineiy means a 

 revolution in the agriculture of the island, and an output of products 

 never before equaled in its four hundred years of Spanish rule and 

 history. 



TRANSPORTATION. 



Intimately related to the agricultural development of the island is 

 the development of transportation facilities. This naturally divides 

 itself into interior and exterior transportation, but it is the former 

 which most concerns the people of the island. The latter will be pro- 

 vided for them when the demand for it is sufficient to justify, but the 

 former must be provided for by the expenditure of several millions of 

 dollars, which must ultimately come from the sources that are thereby 

 benefited. The crying need throughout the island is for roads and more 

 roads. At present the construction and maintenance of roads is entirely 

 vested in the insular government, the districts, barrios, and munici- 

 palities having no responsibility in them whatsoever. Quite an elab- 

 orate system of first, second, and third class roads have been laid out 

 for the island, but a number of years will necessarily elapse before 

 these roads can be constructed, and even when completed there will 

 still be an urgent demand for still further road building in order to 

 reach all of the people. 



The topographical character of Porto Rico makes road building 

 comparatively expensive, and the torrential rains make prompt repairs 

 and maintenance imperative or they soon go to destruction. 



To-give an idea of the cost of road construction in the island, atten- 

 tion is called to the present military road extending from the capital 

 to Ponce and Guayama, together with a few shorter sections in various 

 other places. These roads, built under the Spanish Government, 



