284 Coffee Culture on tbe Soutbern Coast ot Cbiapas* 



parity as if by magic, and are steadily increasing in wealth ; new roads to 

 facilitate transportation are being constantly constructed ; commercial 

 transactions have greatly multiplied ; the revenues are increasing; 

 public credit is being re-established; and what, not long ago was a de- 

 cadent, impoverished, and almost ruined country has become, thanks 

 to the beneficent results of the cultivation of coffee, a rich and pros- 

 perous State. I see no reason why Chiapas, if it follows the same 

 course, should not attain the same results. 



The great agricultural progress made by Guatemala will be better 

 understood if we consider how valuable land has become there. While 

 the best land situated in the Valley of Mexico, in the vicinity of the 

 capital, is estimated at an average value of $100,000 the square league, 

 land situated in the vicinity of the city of Guatemala, for the reason 

 that it is suitable for coffee, sells at $500 per lot of 10,000 square varas, 

 at which rate the Mexican square league would be worth the fabulous 

 sum of $1,250,000. 



On the various occasions on which I have visited Guatemala I have 

 made a special study of coffee culture, which is assuming such large 

 proportions in the neighboring Republic. The greater number of the 

 rules set down in this work, therefore, are based upon experience ac- 

 quired in Guatemala, for, unfortunately, the cultivation of coffee in 

 Soconusco has not yet attained the necessary proportions to base on it 

 a body of rules. This will explain the frequent references which I 

 shall make to Guatemala in the course of this work. 



The best coffee-growing districts of Guatemala are those called 

 there " Costa Grande " and " Costa Cuca," which are the prolongation 

 of the chain of mountains which crosses the southern part of the State 

 of Chiapas, and runs here, as in the neighboring Republic, very near 

 the Pacific, and almost parallel with it. The land on that coast, there- 

 fore, is not inferior to the best in Guatemala ; if there is any difference 

 between them, it is that the Soconusco land is better watered. 



I shall not give here the botanic classification of the coffee tree, a 

 description of the plant, the chemical analysis of its fruit, nor an ac- 

 count of its discovery and use, for although all this is of undoubted 

 interest, it would draw me aside from my main object, which is to lay 

 down practical rules for the cultivation of coffee. I think it necessary, 

 however, to say that science has done little hitherto, at least so far as 

 I know, in favor of this industry. I have not been able to find any 

 information regarding the chemical analysis of the soils suitable for the 

 cultivation of coffee^ nor of other scientific operations whose results 

 would afford a sure basis for methods for its better cultivation. It is 

 plain that if the component substances of the soil which nourishes the 

 coffee tree and those which form its fruit were known with certainty, it 

 might be determined with accuracy what kind of soil and what fertil- 



