MEXICO AND MEXICANS fourth of whose area once belonged to Mexico. It has a coast-line some 6,000 miles long, although its greatest length is less than 2,000 miles and its greatest breadth only 750 miles. Although its area is only one-fourth that of Brazil, its population is approximately equal to that of the empire of the southern continent. Some 15 million souls live within its borders, of whom more than two-thirds can neither read nor write. Of the total population, only 19 per cent are white, 43 per cent are of mixed parentage, while 38 per cent still maintain their Indian blood uncorrupted. The foreign population two years ago numbered 100,000 souls, of whom 30,000 were Americans, 20,000 Spanish, and 5,000 British. MEXICAN AGRICULTURAL POSSIBILITIES The agricultural possibilities of Mexico, despite its vast central desert plain, are great. It has millions of acres of the finest grazing land, great bodies of land that will produce two crops of corn a year, large areas of banana lands that can match those of Guatemala and Costa Rica, coffee lands that produce coffee not only fit for the "queen's table," but used on it, rubber lands, and cocao lands-all lying accessible to good railroads and in touch with the world's markets. Go to Yucatan, go to Colima, go to Chiapas, go to Vera Cruz, and everywhere outside the great desert you will find a soil teeming with possibilities. And portions even of the desert land, if we may judge by what we have done with our own western alkali plains, may yet be made to blossom when the irrigationist and the plant-breeder join hands. The possibilities of the arid and semiarid regions of Mexico are disclosed at Saltillo, on the Mexican plateau between Mexico City and Laredo, Texas. The traveler who journeys from the capital to the frontier spends a night and a day traveling over a barren region, with here and there an adobe city, and with nothing but the green of the cacti to relieve the depressing brown of the desert. About twenty hours out of Mexico he comes to Saltillo. In a moment he passes from the desert into a broad oasis that is wonderful for 475 board today is laden with all the good things that the vegetable kingdom affords. A strange combination of tropical and northern agriculture greets the eye. Most of the things which grow in our own western country flourish alongside of the crops which grow south of the Tropic of Cancer. A trip along the Pan-American railroad, with its magnificent forests and great ancient estates, among them one on which the cattle still wear the brand of Cortes; over the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, where the tropical jungle rivals that of the Motagua River Valley in Guatemala, pronounced by Frank G. Carpenter the richest in the world, and then on up through the great Atlantic plain of middle Mexico, suggests the immense undeveloped resources of the country. In the middle and lower altitude belts of the country the banana and the orange flourish. The excellent railroad facilities of Mexico give a good outlet to the ports at Vera Cruz and Tampico, where ships are constantly loading for European and American ports. The orangeries of eastern Mexico are nearer to the eastern part of the United States than are those of southern California, and crop failures among them are unknown. With the same methods of cultivation that are pursued in Florida and southern California, they should be a source of vast wealth to the country. THE HOME OF CORN AND COTTON Although the value of the corn produced in Mexico each year is greater than that of any other product, not even excepting gold or silver, the country still has to import a part of its supply. The reason is not far to seek-it is the nationwide love for the tortilla. There are vast areas where it is easy to produce two crops of corn a year and where each crop grows with an exuberance that would delight the heart of any corn-club contestant in the United States. It was my good fortune to travel through the region lying between the Mexican highlands and the lowlands, This pastoral scene is where two springs-one hot, the other cold-arise close together, near the city of Colima and the active volcano of the same name, in western Mexico. This part of the country is noted for its enormous wild fig trees. from Santa Lucrecia to Cordoba, and wherever I came across one of those little Mormon settlements which dot the prairie stretches of this region there were fields of corn to be seen the like of which may be met in but few parts of the United States. Uncounted generations before the United States came into being the Indians of Mexico had their little patches of corn. It was the great staple of Montezuma's court, and to this day it is almost the sole support of the Mexican Indian. There are few parts of Mexico, either in the hot belt adjoining the sea or on the table-lands between the mountains, where corn is not cultivated with success. How valuable the crop might be made. when farmed in the Illinois and the Iowa way is shown by the wonderful success with which the Mormons have met when undisturbed by war. History does not recall the time when cotton first was cultivated in Mexico. The Spaniards found it there. Indians clothed with cotton garments were first seen by Columbus along the coast of Yucatan at the very dawn of the sixteenth century. The Toltecs wrote in their sacred books that Quetzalcohuatl, god of the air, grew cotton of all colors in his garden and taught them its many uses. In the times of Cortes the Indians quilted armor of cotton, which was proof against arrows. To this day cotton is cultivated with profit in many parts of the country. In the Laguna region it is perennial and does not require to be planted oftener than once in ten years. Some of the largest cotton factories in the world are to be found in Mexico. The great Rio Blanco mills, in Orizaba, rank with the best in England and America. REMARKABLE MEXICAN PLANTS Mexico probably has a greater range of remarkable vegetation than any other country in the world. The parrot fruit tree produces an odd-shaped fruit, bearing a close resemblance to green parrakeets. Evidently mindful of this striking resemblance, when the parrakeet is MEXICO AND MEXICANS One of the most interesting fruits in Mexico is known as the melon zapote, or papaya. It grows wild and attains a height of as much as 25 feet. The dark-green leaves are from 20 to 30 inches long and grow at the top of an otherwise leafless trunk. The fruit would seem a cross between a cantaloupe, a pumpkin, and a watermelon. The tree begins to bear fruit when a year old, producing from 20 to 100 melons at a time, a single one of which may weigh as much as 20 pounds. The melons contain considerable pepsin, which reacts against both acid and alkaline conditions of the stomach, and it is said that a diet which includes papaya precludes dyspepsia. Both the fruit and the leaves possess the singular property of rendering tough meat tender. When the pulp of the fruit is rubbed over a piece of tough meat the juice attacks the fiber and softens it. The trees are well defined as to sex, and where they are cultivated but one male tree is permitted to grow in a grove of fifty or more females. Mexico abounds in orchids, and some of the most beautiful species known in the plant kingdom are there to be found. As one journeys through the country. from the Tehuantepec Railroad to the Vera Cruz and Mexico City line he sees dozens of species of orchids on the forest trees, some of which would bring top prices in the New York market. MEXICAN RAILROADS No other country in the New World, south of the Rio Grande, is so well sup 477 plied with railroads as Mexico. Prior to the Madero revolution it had 20,000 miles of up-to-date American railroad. At six different points lines crossed the frontier from the United States, and Laredo, Eagle Pass, and El Paso gateways handled much traffic to and from Mexico. The Mexican railroads carried 11,000,000 passengers annually at that time, and handled about 11 million tons of freight. Their total revenues amounted to about $40,000,000. The government owns a controlling interest in the major portion of the mileage. of the railroads, and is the owner of the Tehuantepec road and of the Vera Cruz and Isthmus line. and Isthmus line. A plan was on foot a few years ago to extend a branch of the Tehuantepec road to Yucatan, to connect up with the United Railways of that province. This would give every section of the country railroad communication with every other section. Besides the Tehuantepec route there are two or three other transcontinental lines. The Pan-American Railway extends from the Tehuantepec route to the Guatemalan frontier, and this gives through railroad connection from Canada to Guatemala city. But having traveled over this route, let me advise the sea trip as one far more comfortable, even to those who are not good sailors. From an American standpoint the Tehuantepec route is by far the most interesting of the Mexican railroads, because it is the principal prospective competitor of the Panama Canal. This road is built on the line of the proposed Eads' ship railway, from Coatzacoalcos Salina Cruz. It is approximately 200 miles long, and crosses the continental divide above Rincon Antonio. EADS' DREAM to How Eads could see a ship railway across those mountains is more than I can imagine. When you journey across a mountain on a railroad that is well located, and yet on which the curves have to be so sharp that the rear platform of your car and the headlight of your locomotive point in the same direction, and when this happens not once, but a dozen times, and in a 20-car mixed train, you cannot imagine, in your wildest The Mexicans use a gaff, or heel, up to three inches or more in length. As contrasted to the needle-like heel which is used elsewhere, the Mexican heel is broad and razor-sharp on both edges, except that the top edge is blunted for a little ways back of the point to insure the penetration of the gaff, which might otherwise merely rip instead of cutting deep. The Mexicans sometimes wrangle and haggle for hours while arranging terms of the fights, which are usually over very quickly after they are once started. Not infrequently both cocks fall dead after the first clash. flights of fancy, how a ship could be hauled over those mountains in a gigantic cradle. There are many peculiarities about the Tehuantepec Railroad. It is owned by the government, but is operated by a company made up of two equal partners, the Mexican government and the firm of S. Pearson & Son, Each partner contributed half the capital of the firm, and they share the profits, the Pearson firm being the managing director. The Mexican government owns about one-third of the stock of the AmericanHawaiian steamship line, which is the principal freight producer for the Tehuantepec Railroad. Years ago these ships went around South America, from Hawaii to New York, with their cargoes of sugar. When the Mexican government decided to build the Tehuantepec Railroad, it proposed to the steamship line to take a third of its stock, and to handle its cargoes across the Isthmus upon terms that would be more advantageous than the trip around South America. It agreed to handle the business between Salina Cruz and Coatzacoalcos for one-third of the through rate. with the understanding that if this did not afford a profit to the steamship company the railroad would be willing to accept as low as a fourth of the through rate. COMPETING WITH PANAMA With the opening of the Panama Canal, the American-Hawaiian line will send its ships through that waterway, in spite of the fact that the Mexican government owns one-third of the line's stock, and took it in order to get the steamships to use the Tehuantepec route. But although the Tehuantepec officials concede that on through cargo business they cannot, under any circumstances, compete with the Panama Canal, they still believe that they will not be seriously affected by the opening of the big waterway. They think that the business boom that the canal will bring to tropical America will give enough additional mixed cargo to take the place of the through cargo lost. To illustrate: On a ship loaded with lumber and bound for New York from Oregon, the Tehuantepec route could not quote a rate that could compete with the canal; but on a ship that left Liverpool with mixed cargo, some bound for California, some for Hawaii, some for Peru, and some for China, the Tehuantepec route could transfer that cargo as advantageously as the Panana Canal. Mexico spent a fortune in building port works at Salina Cruz and Coatzoalcos for the loading and unloading of the big ships that carry cargo to and from the Isthmus. At the former place a modern harbor has been made where scarcely an indentation in the shore line existed before. The inner harbor is arti ficial entirely, and ships now ride 30 feet above what once was the old town site of Salina Cruz. Great blocks of concrete make a sea-wall between the inner and the outer harbors. The outer harbor is formed by two great breakwaters which leave an opening about 600 feet wide out to sea. These breakwaters enclose a harbor space of about 20 acres. Ships are loaded and unloaded with electric cranes, the cars having trap doors in their roofs. The peons often handle as much as 60 tons of sugar each a day. They are paid a standard wage, with a bonus for all above a certain amount they handle, and they certainly do work for that bonus. When the railroad was begun, wages in the Tehuantepec region were 25 cents Mexican a day; they soon reached $1, then $1.50, then $2.00, and finally, $2.25 a day. An interesting sidelight on the policy of former President Diaz toward the upbuilding of a middle class in Mexico was afforded me by a conversation with the Vice-President and General Manager of the National Railways. He told me that General Diaz wanted to put Mexicans in |