Modern Agriculture in Mexico 



D. L. CRAWFORD 

 POMONA COLLEGE, CLAREMONT, CALIFORNIA 



Mexico, with its many thousands of square miles of good, arable land, is 

 preeminently adapted to agriculture. There are few countries in the world which 

 have the enormous possibilities of wealth which now lie in the most productive 

 soil of our sister Republic. Our states are producing now immense quantities of 

 cereals and temperate fruits, but Mexico has the natural opportunity to produce 

 not only immense amounts of cereals and temperate fruits but in addition nearly 

 all the standard tropical and subtropical products known to commerce. 



The topography of the country is very varied. In the vast northern desert, 

 which will some day be transformed by irrigation, are large sections which by the 

 presence of water are enabled to yield richly in citrus and other fruits, cereals and 

 cotton. The southern and more tropical section has a wide range in climate and 

 soil conditions. There are three recognized divisions: the tierra fria, or the inland 

 plateaus and mountain valleys, always quite cold; the tierra templada, or the lower 

 table lands, moderate in climate; and the tierra caliente, or the hot coast country. 

 Each of these three belts is naturally adapted to totally different forms of agri- 

 culture. Each of the three belts is, moreover, adapted within itself to different 

 things. One section of the temperate lands may be best adapted to the culture of 

 fruit ; another may be better able to produce good corn. One section of the hot 

 country is best suited to the culture of the Castilla rubber tree; another is not 

 fitted for this, but favors the production of coffee, or bananas, or the fibre plants. 

 It is a pitiable thing, indeed, to see in Mexico one prospective planter after another 

 go to ruin just because of ignorance or carelessness in not heeding these laws of 

 natural adaptation of soils. 



The time was, not far back, when the products of agriculture were with great 

 difficulty shipped beyond the immediate locality where they happened to be grown. 

 This is no longer true. Railroads are tapping scores of rich areas and making it 

 possible for growers in almost any portion of the country to send their goods not 

 only to the large cities of the Republic but also to the outside world. Three long 

 lines of railway enter the United States and a fourth is rapidly being pushed to 

 completion from Southern California to Guadalajara and Mexico City. Three 

 large shipping centers on each coast, Tampico, Vera Cruz, and Puerto Mexico on 

 the Gulf coast, and Acapulco, Salina Cruz, and Manzanillo on the Pacific, together 

 with many smaller ports, make communication with the outside world compara- 

 tively easy. And if a better communication is necessary it only required an active 

 demand for it to bring it about. 



As a rule a country tries to produce as much as possible of the articles of food 

 used by its own people. The universal crops of the country are corn and beans, 

 as would be expected since these are the two chief articles of food. These are 

 grown, or at last planted, in nearly all regions and under nearly all conditions of 

 soil and climate. Vast corn fields are planted every year on the extensive plateau- 



