For a long time several routes have been under discussion and some concessions have been granted, which mismanagement or the difficulty of getting capitalists to invest in so remote a field have rendered abortive. Therefore there is still discussion; and opportunities for construction are open.
Beginning at the north the first cross line proposed is that in the Department Piura, continuing the road from the good port of Paita to Puerto Molendez, Calantura, or Limón, on the Marañon River below the Pongo de Manserriche. This plan has the great advantage of crossing the Andes at its lowest point, 6600 feet. An important consideration is that it would make practicable the export from Paita of rubber which is now carried from Iquitos by way of the Amazon and Pará; the far shorter journey by sea from Paita to New York, easily made within ten days, would more than counterbalance the rail freight from the river port 400 miles to Paita. It would surely be a better route for business men and offers other advantages; among these access to coal and iron mines en route.
Another transcontinental route proposed is from some point connected with the Central Railway which has already surmounted the divide. A route on which much money has been spent for engineering investigation, surveys, and otherwise is from Cerro de Pasco or Goyllarisquisga to Pucalpa or some other point on the Ucayali. This central road for political reasons seems extremely desirable. It would open up the fine grazing lands of the Pampa Sacramento, and rich alluvial gold deposits in or on several streams, as well as the forest and rubber country. Another suggestion is to continue the road directly east from Oroya down to the Perené River and to Puerto Wertheman; a better may be to build 175 miles from Matahuasi, a station on the Oroya-Huancayo Railway, to Jesus Marie on the Ené River near the mouth of the Pangoa, where 12 feet of water would permit of commerce by large steamers by way of the Tambo and Ucayali.
One important cross route would naturally be by the Southern Railway, from a point on the Cuzco branch, Tirapata, Urcos, or Cuzco, the earlier plans looking to a connection with the Madre de Dios River. But as this route would necessitate a long roundabout journey, as well as a passage through Bolivia and freightage on the Madeira-Mamoré Railway, the Government has recently undertaken for itself a line from Cuzco to Santa Ana on the Urubamba, by which the journey is greatly shortened and will be wholly within the Republic as far as Brazil, following down the Urubamba and Ucayali to the Amazon and Iquitos. The drawback to this route is that only very light draught steamers can come up to Santa Ana at any season of the year.
Lines quoted as under construction by the Peruvian Government in 1919 are that from Chimbote up the Huailas Valley to Recuay, already referred to, which when completed will be immediately profitable, the continuation of the road from Huancayo to Cuzco, now open 30 miles from the former city; and the Cuzco to Santa Ana just mentioned. A short line recently opened from Lima to Lurín, crossing the Pachacamac River, brings two fertile valleys with their fruit and vegetables into close connection with the capital. Lurín is but 16 miles from the suburb Chorillos, which for some years has had railway service. The ancient pre-Inca ruins at Pachacamac are now easily accessible.
The Longitudinal or Pan American Railway, crossing all the others, would come in at the north from Cuenca and Loja in Ecuador, continuing to Huancabamba, Jaen, and Cajamarca in that Department, thence down the valley to the Santa River, there joining the railway to Recuay, which will be prolonged to Goyllarisquisga. By this time the connection will be complete to Cuzco, and so to La Paz, La Quiaca, and Buenos Aires.
CHAPTER XXIII
PERU: RESOURCES AND INDUSTRIES
Agriculture
While for centuries Peru has been celebrated as a land of marvelous mineral riches, especially of gold and silver, nevertheless, in spite of her desert shore, her bleak table-land, and her undeveloped montaña, like California, her chief wealth is in her agriculture. What the figures say about the exports is easily ascertainable; but though corroborating this statement they do not tell all the story, since most of the mineral production is exported, while the greater part of the agricultural stays at home. Of the latter, sugar is the leading product.
Sugar grows along the coast and, where opportunity offers, up to a height of 4500 feet; in the montaña to a height of 6000 feet. At present most of it is raised near the coast. The Chicama Valley, famed for its splendid estates, produces more sugar than the entire Island of Porto Rico, and this of the finest quality. In the temperate, equable climate, the cane matures early and may be cut all the year around. It is unusually rich in sucrose. Some estates are 15-20 miles square, producing 15,000-30,000 tons each; 50-60 tons of cane to the acre is quite usual. The cane is cut and ground from 18 to 24 months after planting, and being cut throughout the year instead of during four or five months only, the same amount of work may be done with far less machinery and fewer laborers. In places a two months suspension is made, when the river is full, to attend to irrigation and to clean or repair machinery, etc.