FORESTS OF PORTO KICO. 19 



recently roads and other means of travel in Porto Rico have been 

 poor. This confined early settlement and development to the sea- 

 board and delayed the opening up of the interior. Then, too, the 

 products of one section have not been sufficiently different from those 

 in another to sustain an intra-island trade either by land or water. 

 These circumstances and the system of trading which flourished 

 between the West Indies, Europe, and America unjbil recent times 

 made the ports of the south coast, for instance, each commercially 

 closer to Bilboa and Cadiz and to the world ports in general than to 

 San Juan or each other; San Juan in particular, being formerly the 

 last port of call on the voyage to the Old World from Gulf and Carib- 

 bean ports, often found it easier to get timbers and other natural 

 products from Santo Domingo than from the immediately adjacent 

 country or a neighboring Porto Rican port. The fact that for over 

 a century Santo Domingan timbers have been in common use in San 

 Juan has led to the belief that Porto Rico was never well timbered or 

 that what large material there was soon became exhausted, whereas 

 the lack of adequate internal transportation facilities offers a more 

 likely explanation. 1 



This paucity of transportation facilities persisted until well past 

 the middle of the last century. 2 The famous military road, the main 

 artery of the projected plan for highways under Spanish sovereignty, 

 was commenced about 1842 and finally completed in 1888, with a 

 total length of 134 kilometers (about 84 miles). The remaining 

 mileage of improved roads, which aggregated 275 kilometers (about 

 175 miles) at the close of the Spanish regime in 1898, largely com- 

 prised isolated sections of several road projects. From the Ameri- 

 can occupation to June 30, 1912, 794 kilometers (500 miles) of mac- 

 adam road have been constructed, making a total of 1,069 kilometers 

 (670 miles). These are largely trunk-line roads, from which extend 

 many dirt roads suitable for the bull cart and like vehicles, while 

 beyond these are mountain trails where pack and saddle horses and 

 the land canoe, or flat-bottomed dugout hauled by oxen, are still 

 the only means of transportation. 



It is usually only rough mountain trails that reach the "conuco" 

 farmer, the forested area, and many of the coffee plantations. These 

 trails are mostly in very bad condition. Absolutely without drainage, 



i One can see the effects of similar conditions in operation to-day in Santo Domingo. With 85 per cent 

 of her land area under virgin forests, a sixth of which is pine, Santo Domingo imported from the United 

 States in 1911 forest products to the amount of $130,800, including 3,937,000 board feet of lumber, valued at 

 $91,296, and shooks and other unmanufactured timber products, exclusive of naval stores, valued at $12,206 

 additional. 



2 Robin (see bibliography) in 1802-1806 testifies not only to the poor transportation facilities, but to the 

 abundant forests, in the following reference: "The island of Porto Rico is still little inhabited, in spite 

 of the earliriess of its settlement. * * * The habitations, isolated and dispersed over the island, lack 

 communication with one another. * * * It is, however, not necessary (in order to provide roads) to 

 cut the mountains, raise the valleys, or fill the marshes, but simply cut down the large and vigorous 

 trees.'! 



