AGRICULTUKAL EESOUECES, ETC., OF POETO EICO. 29 



object of such industries is to give profitable employment to the wives 

 and children of farm laborers, so that the earning ability of the home 

 may be doubled and in some cases quadrupled. Under such conditions, 

 if the head of the family fails for any cause to earn his wage, the 

 home goes on; the earning capacity is lessened, but the home is not 

 destroyed. This has its moral as well as economic bearing. Many 

 philanthropic Porto Ricans suggested that the farm laborers on the 

 coffee and tobacco plantations scattered upon the mountains, without 

 roads, society, or schools, children nude and semiwild, could never 

 derive the full advantages of free education and be influenced by the 

 elevation of society until they were gathered into small villages and 

 became amenable to society. In a republic this can not be done by 

 force, but once establish small industrial villages in the country and 

 the small, scattered mountain population will be attracted to the vil- 

 lage by its superior earning capacity and its advantages for schools, 

 society, and better living. This will be no detriment to the farms, 

 because the village laborers will be within reach of every farm. The 

 industrial village where all are workers, is fundamental in Japanese 

 civilization. The manufacture of hats, straw goods, and matting, the 

 production of raw silk, and the canning of tropical fruits are examples 

 of the employments in question. 



BETTER HOMES. 



It is of vital importance to the future prosperity of Porto Rico that 

 there should be a great improvement in the homes of the farm laborers, 

 better houses, and more comforts. To this end a larger and more 

 comfortable house must be devised that will be within the means of 

 the laborer to build. This can be done with a slight addition of the 

 labor expended upon it. In this connection the necessity of encour- 

 aging the planting of trees for building purposes is apparent. 



Present Agricultural Resources and Possibilities op Porto 



Rico. 



The exports of Porto Rico for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1901, 

 may be estimated as follows: 



Estimated exports of Porto Rico for 1901. 



Note: Tlie total exports for 1897 were $11,011,524. 



The sugar crop of 1900 will be less than normal, but, by reason of 

 the better price, will bring considerably more monej^ The tobacco 

 crop is placed at normal, and the coffee crop at 50 per cent of normal. 

 It will be seen that the estimated exports of the fiscal year ending 

 June 1, 1901, are only $405,762 below those of 1897, the last year of 

 Spanish possession, regardless of the destruction of the hurricane, which 

 reduced the coffee export about $5,500,000. The farmers have given 



