Page:Mexico and its reconstruction.djvu/226

208 has given the first great impulse toward respect for the rights of one's fellowman, and toward a desire for order. It is the occupation in which individual initiative and industry first received impetus. Mexico will find it of the highest importance to foster the growth of her classes who live independently upon the land, if the republic is to become what it never has been, a truly democratic government.

The agricultural exports reflect but imperfectly the degree to which this development has already taken place in Mexico, for the reason that many of the lines in which harvests have been greatly increased enter export but slightly and because even some of agricultural products that are exported, such as henequen, are not typically the yield of small holdings. Nevertheless there can be no question that the diversification of agricultural products and of the export of them is indicative of a change in the national life of fundamental importance.

From still another point of view this development is interesting. It reflects, to a degree, a development of hot lands heretofore disliked and neglected by both native and foreigner. Henequen, coffee, rubber, vanilla, and chicle, among the vegetable exports, are names that suggest tropical climates.

The growth of the agricultural exports of Mexico can only be sketched here. Up to the present henequen fiber, or sisal, has come, almost entirely, from Yucatan. It is the material from which the greater part of the binder twine used in the United States is made and it finds almost its exclusive market in that country. The