Sugar cane, grown extensively on the fertile lands of the valleys, without fertilizer and with occasional hoeing, gives crops of 80 tons per acre, averaging 40 tons. It flourishes up to 7000 feet. Small primitive mills are the rule, but a few with modern machinery have been established, one near Cartagena. A brown sugar is chiefly made in the small mills, pantana, which is palatable and nourishing; but some is refined for table use and for the chocolate factories. A large amount of sugar is used for chicha (sugar syrup fermented with corn), for denatured alcohol, and for aguardiente, a kind of rum; the last is a government monopoly. The sugar production is hardly sufficient for local needs.
Tobacco, which some think equal to the best Havana, is raised, mostly for local consumption; formerly much was exported to Bremen.
Cacao grows wild on thousands of acres, some trees reaching a height of 45 feet; but to give the best results it must be cultivated. It is planted for early protection under bananas, together with other trees which will give shade later. Local demand consumes most of the supply. Little attention is paid to its cultivation, though the Magdalena and Cauca Valleys are well adapted to it. Trees 60 years old are found in bearing.
Coconut palms might be more largely cultivated, plantations existing chiefly on the coast and islands. The fibres and oil are useful and many nuts are exported.
Rice grows freely in rich, hot, irrigated land, but it is not largely cultivated.
Cotton of excellent quality is raised from Egyptian seed on the Caribbean coast and in Antioquia; it is found growing wild at low and moderate altitudes all over the country. But little use is made of it except where factories are near, these promoting its culture. The plants, perennials, grow 12 feet high. The cotton, unrivalled for length of fibre, is all used locally.
Other fibrous plants are the Agave Americana or century plant, which is cultivated as a hedge; enough is produced to satisfy most of the home demand for fibre for ordinary rope and twine, also for making common packing sacks, and alpargatas, sandals worn by the poorer people. Here grow ramie and other shrubs, the fibre of which is used for vegetable silk. Ramie on the Bogotá River yields 6 crops a year without irrigation, the stems 6 feet long having a very tough fibre. Most of the Magdalena land could not be better used than for raising such plants. A recent invention to extract the fibre by a chemical process makes its culture important. Jute in Colombia on the same soil as ramie reaches double the height attained in its native country, and gives two cuttings a year, the first crop three months after planting.
Wheat gives good crops on the highlands, and maize (corn) grows everywhere, in the rich lower valleys producing three crops a year. Potatoes and other vegetables grow in various altitudes.
Forestry
The natural wealth of the forests is enormous, though at present largely inaccessible for lack of transportation facilities, a condition which might easily be remedied so far as the forests of the Pacific Coast and of the Atrato and Magdalena Basins are concerned. The chief products now are rubber and tagua nuts.