uals the fish business.

"Woollen goods are, naturally, of but limited consumption in so warm a
climate, and the trade is probably less than $150,000 in amount.
Agricultural implements represent a business of three to four hundred
thousand dollars. Boots and shoes, almost exclusively from Spain,
represent some five or six hundred thousand. Chinaware, glassware,
lumber, coal, soap, furniture and other articles of general use and
consumption represent amounts varying from one to three or four hundred
thousand dollars.

"The most astonishing thing in the whole list of importations is the
item of vegetable and garden products. These are imported into this
country, which is in itself but a natural garden in which can and should
be raised every form of vegetable necessary or desirable for
consumption, and the annual value of the imports approximates $400,000
and the weight 7,000 tons. The island uses $150,000 worth of imported
candles and $50,000 worth of imported butter yearly. It uses two to
three hundred thousand dollars' worth of cheese, of which the
Netherlands have, for the last few years, furnished much the greater
part. Uruguay and the Argentine supply it with one to three thousand
tons of jerked beef annually. Wines, beers, and liquors take something
more than a half a million a year out of the country.

"Among Porto Rican exports coffee is the heaviest item. This reaches an
average valuation of some $10,000,000 a year. Sugar ranks next, and
approximates three to four million dollars. Tobacco goes to the extent
of some half a million, and molasses touches about the same figure.
Hides, cattle, timber and fruit are represented in the list, but their
value is comparatively inconsiderable. Guano to the extent of half a
million a year appears in the reports for some years, but I am unable
to account for either the article or the amount. Some corn has been sent
to Cuba, some native rum to Spain, and some bay rum to France and to the
United States.

"It will thus be seen that, as yet, the island offers but a
comparatively limited amount of business, either in buying or selling.
Under wise laws, and a just and equitable system of taxation, with a
suitable railway system and improved highways, and with the ports of the
United States and of the islands open to the exchange of commodities,
free of duty, a very material increase of the business of the island
will inevitably follow. It is quite possible to double the trade wi