roportions. For a hundred years, at least, only slow progress was made.
In 1768 the king, of Spain issued a royal decree exempting coffee
growers on the island from the payment of taxes or charges for a period
of five years; but even that measure was not materially successful in
stimulating interest and in developing cultivation.

Porto Rico is a good coffee-growing country; soil, climate, and
temperature are well adapted to the berry. The coffee belt extends
through the western half of the island, beginning in the hills along the
south coast around Ponce, and extending north through the center of the
island almost to Arecibo, near the west end of the north coast. But some
coffee is grown in the other parts of the island, in sixty-four of the
sixty-eight municipalities. Mountain sections are considered to be
superior.

The largest plantations are in the region which includes the
municipalities of Utuado, Adjuntas, Lares, Las Marias, Yauco, Maricao,
San Sebastian, Mayaguez, Ciales, and Ponce. With the exception of Ponce
and Mayaguez, all these districts are back from the coast; but insular
roads of recent construction make them now easily accessible, and there
is no point on the island more than twenty miles distant from the sea.

[Illustration: RECEIVING AND MEASURING THE RIPE BERRIES FROM THE
PICKERS, MEXICO]

From the Sierra Luquillo range, which rises to a height of 1,500 feet,
and from Yauco, Utuado, and Lares, come excellent coffees; and, on the
whole, these are considered to be the best coffee regions of the island.
A fine grade of coffee is also grown in the Ciales district. Figures
compiled by the Treasury Department of the insular government for the
purpose of taxation showed that for the tax year 1915-16 there were
167,137 acres of land planted to coffee and valued at $10,341,592, an
average of $61.87 per acre. In 1910, there were 151,000 acres planted in
coffee. In 1916 there were more than 5,000 separate coffee plantations.

Originally the coffee trees of Porto Rico were all of the _arabica_
variety. In recent years numerous others have been introduced, until in
1917 there were more than 2,500 trees of new descriptions on the island.

The virgin land in the interior of the island is admirably adapted to
the coffee tree, and less labor is required to prepare it for plantation
purposes than in many other coffee-growing countries. It is cleared in
the usual manner, and the trees are planted about eight fee