66 ITS YIELD TOBACCO ORIZABA CHIAPAS, ETC. 



plant is estimated at about two and a half pounds throughout all 

 parts of the republic where the berry is cultivated; though there are 

 districts of Mexico in which it is said that three or four pounds are 

 yielded. This probably depends very much on the size, age, or 

 quality of the tree. Mr. Ward states that he knew of a single tree, 

 in the garden of Don Pablo de la Llave, at Cordova, which pro- 

 duced twenty-eight pounds ! The slope of the eastern Cordillera is 

 supposed to be best calculated for coffee estates, and it is believed 

 that Yucatan and Tabasco will ultimately, under favorable circum- 

 stances, become the centres of a lucrative trade in this article, if the 

 Indian population can ever be trained to agricultural labors, or made 

 productively industrious in a land where the wants of nature are so 

 few and so easily supplied. The plantations in the interior must 

 long be excluded from foreign markets for the same reason that we 

 have assigned in regard to sugar. Roads and improved transpor- 

 tation are the fundamental and primary elements of commercial 

 civilization, and until these are obtained permanently, Mexico must 

 look chiefly to her domestic market for agricultural recompense. 



Tobacco. 



In a country in which all the men, and nearly all the women are 

 habitual and even constant smokers, tobacco, must necessarily be 

 an article of national importance. So valuable is its production 

 that the government has continued to maintain the monopoly of its 

 sale, and, previous to the revolution, managed to obtain an annual 

 clear revenue of from one to two millions and a half of dollars, with 

 a gross income, occasionally, of over seven millions and a half. 

 In the cigar factories of Oajaca five millions of packets of paper 

 cigarritos of thirty in each were prepared, besides sixty thousand 

 packets each containing seven puros or ordinary cigars. 



Tobacco grows well in a small district near Orizaba and Cor- 

 dova, but the best article produced in the republic, comes from 

 Simojovel in the state of Chiapas and from some districts of Oajaca. 

 In Yucatan and Tabasco, the plant is also cultivated successfully, 

 and produces a mild and fragrant leaf which is not included in the 

 national monopoly. A large portion of the tobacco sold in the 

 republic is contraband ; for the ridiculous and greedy restrictions 

 and exactions with which a plant of such universal consumption is 

 surrounded, necessarily dispose the people to violate laws which 

 they feel were only made to impair their rights of production and 

 trade under a constitution professing to be free. 



