i 9 o POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ports have doubled every five years since 1865. On account of dis- 

 tance it is not practicable to bring any of these fruits from the 

 Philippines, but there is no limit to the amount of trade that can grow 

 up on the lines that are now beginning to form between us and our 

 southern neighbors. 



As to the fitness of tropic America to supply our needs: There 

 are Central America, South America, and the West Indies. An 

 examination of their area and productiveness shows that there is 

 little to induce American industry to control any part of the East- 

 ern Hemisphere. Of the 17,000,000 square miles that make up the 

 Western Continent, the tropics make up 5,000,000 square miles 

 an area sufficient to make more than one hundred States as large 

 as Pennsylvania; an area nearly fifty times as great as the Philip- 

 pines. The variety of its productions is scarcely excelled even by 

 the East Indies. There are only two important tropic products im- 

 ported into the United States that are not already largely produced on 

 this continent. They are Manila hemp and tea, and it would appear 

 that the reason they come from the East is because of present labor 

 conditions there. Manila hemp is a sort of half-wild product that 

 may yet have an introduction to our rich tropics just as the po- 

 tato was introduced into Europe, and many of our crops have been 

 introduced from Europe. Even the tea plant thrives in the warm 

 regions of America as far north as Tennessee. Small quantities 

 of tea are now grown in various parts of America,* but the cheap 

 labor of the East has made it unprofitable here. We are at the 

 present time getting nine tenths of our tea from India, where Anglo- 

 Saxon care has developed the industry and is fast driving China out 

 of the tea market of the world. 



There is a difference when it comes to the two great tropic staples 

 of coffee and sugar. Our imports of these two articles in 1897 were 

 valued at $180,000,000, while the imports of tea were less than one 

 twelfth as much. At the present time nearly all the coffee used 

 in the United States comes from Central and South America, whence 

 also comes the greater part of the world's supply. The declining 

 price of coffee indicates that we shall get it under more favorable 

 terms in the future. 



We import about $100,000,000 worth of sugar per annum.f 

 Approximately two fifths of it is beet sugar and comes from the con- 

 tinent of Europe, and the rest is cane sugar from scattered sources 

 in the tropics. Only one sixth comes from the Eastern Hemisphere. 

 We are getting sugar from Europe, not because it is the natural 

 development of the industry, but because those countries are will- 

 ing to give an export bounty on all that is exported. This makes 



* United States Report on Commerce and Navigation for 1897. f Ibid. 



