10 BULLETIN 354, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



certain requirements concerning residence and cultivation, resembling 

 very strikingly our own national homestead act, passed 350 years 

 later. 



GOVERNMENT LANDS. 



By 1830 the Government had disposed of approximately half of the 

 island, and between that time and the Spanish- American War had 

 given away about nine-tenths of the remainder. The rest of the 

 Crown lands, which, by the Treaty of Paris, December 10, 1898, became 

 the property of the United States, amount, as nearly as can be ascer- 

 tained from the records, 1 to 147,971 acres, of which 7,400 acres are 

 classified as swamp land. These lands, except a small amount 

 reserved for Federal use, were ceded by act of Congress approved 

 July 1, 1902, to the people of Porto Rico. Some 3,000 acres in addi- 

 tion have reverted to the local government in default of taxes. Thus 

 the entire public domain, including Federal and insular lands, amounts 

 to less than 151,000 acres. 



By far the greater part of this land lies in the mountains. Except 

 for a few of the more accessible tracts, comparatively little is known 

 about its present condition, or even its location, since in only one or 

 two instances has any survey or detailed examination been made. 

 General information gathered in the vicinity of some of the larger 

 tracts indicates that only a very small amount of this land supports a 

 productive forest, except a tract in the Sierra de Luquillo. The 

 greater part is at present an idle, unproductive, grass or brush covered 

 waste. In some few instances it is so situated as to be suitable for 

 coffee culture, but in the aggregate it is of slight agricultural value, 

 though it has a large potential value as forest land. 



PRIVATELY OWNED LANDS. 



Figure 2 2 indicates for the years 1828, 1900, and 1912 the compara- 

 tive areas of public lands and of private lands under cultivation to 

 different crops, under pasture, and under forests. 



In 1828, while slightly over half of the island was privately owned, 

 scarcely more than 3 per cent was under cultivation. Agriculture 

 was then carried on largely for the production of home staples. Thus 

 plantains, Indian corn, and rice covered more than half, while the 

 commercial agricultural staples of to-day, cane, coffee, and tobacco, 

 together covered scarcely one-fourth of the whole cultivated area. 

 Between 1828 and the end of the Spanish regime the area under culti- 

 vation had increased to about 13 per cent. Nearly half of this was 

 in coffee, and somewhat more than one-fifth of the remainder in cane. 



i See report of the Commissioner of the Interior for Porto Rico, 1909. 



2 Compiled from Flinter's "Porto Rico," containing the official returns for 1828, from Knapp's "Agri- 

 cultural Resources and Capabilities of Porto Rico," and the summary of tax assessment (corrected to 

 Aug. 10, 1912) in Report of the Governor of Porto Rico, 1912. 



