Page:Mexico of the Mexicans.djvu/158

134 maize; and in the South and in Yucatan, hennequen and other fibre-producing plants.

Mexico produces a very superior grade of coffee. Besides those already mentioned, the chief coffee-growing districts are in Vera Cruz, Morelos, and San Luis Potosi. Colima, too, is famous for its coffee, the flavour of which is exceptionally fine. It has been stated more than once by responsible authorities that a clear profit of 75 per cent, can be made on coffee-growing in Mexico. One of the great difficulties that the coffee-grower has to contend with is the shortness of labour, for, as elsewhere, the Mexican peon prefers to seek his fortune in the towns and is rapidly forsaking the country, his place being gradually taken by Japanese and Chinese coolies. As some indication of the large export coffee trade that Mexico does, it may serve to mention that she sends nearly 40,000,000 Ib. of coffee to the United States every year.

The cocoa plant is indigenous to Mexico, and is nowadays being exploited in Europe in the form of Mexican chocolate to compete with the British and Swiss makes. The plant was well known to the ancient Mexicans, who, by the way, did not call it, or rather the beverage made from it, "chocolatl," as Prescott and other writers have affirmed. In ancient times, the natives mixed it with maize-flour and honey, and drank it cold. The State of Tabasco is the principal cocoa-growing centre.

So much has been written regarding the barbarities of the hennequen plantations in Yucatan, that I have confined my remarks as to the iniquities of the system to the chapter on "The Revolution," with which they are more or less intimately connected. Hennequen, like pita and ixtle, is a fibrous plant of considerable Commercial value. It will not do to blame the United States or even American investors for the wickednesses connected with this particular industry, for Yucatan has an absolute monopoly in the trade, and the capital invested in it is practically all Yucatec. The merchants of