gannett] A GAZETTEER OF PORTO RICO. 11 
living together by mutual consent be included, was very small. In 
part this may be accounted for by the fact, established by the census, 
that the proportion of children was very large and that of adults cor- 
respondingly small. There are few aged persons in the island. 
Of the total population, only 16.6 per cent, or one-sixth, were able 
to read. The proportion was much greater in the large cities than in 
the rural districts, and was much larger among the whites than the 
colored. 
The persons engaged in gainful occupations were 33.1 per cent of 
the total population, a proportion somewhat smaller than in the United 
States. This may probably be accounted for by the greater propor- 
tion of children in Porto Rico. Of the males, 56.9 per cent were 
breadwinners; of the females, only 9.9 per cent. Classifjdng the 
breadwinners by groups of occupations, it appears that 62.8 per cent 
of them were engaged in agriculture, 20.5 per cent in personal and 
domestic service, 8.4 per cent in manufactures, 7.6 per cent in trade 
and transportation, and 0.7 per cent in the professions. The leading 
occupation, in which more than two- thirds of the breadwinners were 
engaged, was that of labor. 
Of the entire area of Porto Rico, 3,606 square miles, including the 
adjacent islands, 2,743 square miles were, in 1899, included within 
farms. This is 76 per cent of the area. The land under cultivation 
was 747 square miles, or 21 per cent of the total area, a proportion 
larger than that cultivated in the United States, and yet a small pro- 
portion when one considers the density of the population and the fact 
that it is almost entirely rural. There were 39,021 farms, with an 
average area of only 45 acres and an average cultivated area of but 
12 acres. In the United States the average area under cultivation 
per farm in 1890 was 78 acres. Ownership of farms was almost uni- 
versal, not less than 93 per cent of the farms and 91 per cent of the 
farm area being owned by their occupants. The farms owned by 
whites were, as a rule, larger than those owned by the colored. 
The leading farm product of Porto Rico is coffee, which was planted 
upon not less than 41 per cent of the total cultivated area. While 
coffee was produced in all parts of the island, its culture is more gen- 
eral in the hilly central and western parts. Sugar cane holds second 
rank as a product, occupying 15 per cent of the cultivated lands, its 
area of cultivation being mainly the coast lands all around the island. 
Bananas occupied 14 per cent of the cultivated land; sweet potatoes, 
8 per cent; Indian corn, 4 per cent; rice, 2 per cent; cocoanuts, 2 per 
cent, and tobacco only 1 per cent of the cultivated land. 
Manufactures are few and of trifling importance. No mining of 
any kind is at present carried on in the island, although in times past 
valuable gold placers were worked by the Spaniards. It is by no 
means improbable that thorough prospecting may develop valuable 
mineral resources hitherto unsuspected. 
