ECONOMIC CONDITION OF COSTA EICA. 



309 



But Costa Rica enjoys the advantage over Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Mexico 

 that about one-half of the agricultural population are everywhere landowners, 

 except in the province of Guanacaste. The territory which, even under the Spanish 

 rule, was almost exclusively cultivated by free labour, is, for the most part, divided 

 into small holdings, which give to the peasantry a direct interest in its improvement. 

 In 1886 there were enumerated altogether 57,639 such holdings {fincas), with a 

 total value of £7,760,0C0, but mortgaged to the extent of £1,600,000. Not more 

 than one-twentieth part of the whole land has yet been brought under cultivation. 



Since the middle of the century trade increased fourfold, from about £400,000 

 to from £1,400,000 to £1,600,000, or in the proportion of from £6 to £8 per 



Fig-. 137.— Mill for Huskixg Coffee. 



head of the population. Great Britain, the United States, France, and Germany, 

 in the order here given, are the chief customers of Costa Rica. The great high- 

 way of the traffic is the railway by which the capital has been completely connected 

 with the seaport of Limon on the Atlantic side since the year 1890. The railway 

 company, besides government advances, has received a grant of many hundred 

 thousand acres of land on the condition of selling or renting it within a period of 

 twenty years. A portion of this vast domain has already been ceded to settlers, 

 either for tillage or stock-breeding. 



Other railways are also projected, to connect Costa Rica with Nicaragua and 

 its future canal, and plans and estimates have been prepared for regulating the 

 discharge of the Rivers Frio, San Carlos, Sarapiqui, and Sacio, with a view to 



