One-third of the world’s supply of cacao, or chocolate, is had from Ecuador, and this is measured by shipments through Guayaquil of 450,000 to 550,000 quintals, or 45,450,000 pounds to 55,550,000 pounds. In one year, of a total crop of 499,000 quintals, 456,000 were exported through this port. In a later year the value of the cacao exported was $7,624,000. A large section of the cacao-producing region is directly tributary to the city. The exportations of vegetable ivory—the tagua or ivory nut of commerce—vary from 39,000,000 pounds to 44,000,000 pounds annually, valued at from $600,000 to $750,000, according to the market price. In one very successful year the value was $1,100,000. For the last year given the exports of crude rubber reached 1,100,000 pounds, valued at $600,000. The United States takes 75 per cent and upwards of the rubber product. The coffee shipments were worth $500,000. There is also a considerable export trade in the various kinds of straw and felt hats which are manufactured in the interior. Hides are also an article of export.
Cacao Trees
The statistics of production and of the foreign trade are compiled by the Guayaquil Chamber of Commerce, a very progressive institution in a country that is not excessively enterprising in exhibiting the natural resources. From the figures supplied me by the Chamber, I found that the United States enjoyed a fair proportion of the Ecuador commerce. France takes the larger portion of the chocolate and coffee, but the United States furnishes Ecuador a market to the amount of $2,250,000 to $2,600,000 annually, and ships goods in about the same proportion. Germany received in one year about $2,150,000; Great Britain, $2,000,000. In the imports England has the advantage over all others in cottons and woollens. The heaviest item in the exports from the United States to Ecuador is provisions, which amount to $500,000 yearly. Petroleum, lumber, machinery, and hardware also find a market.
This United States trade and all the foreign commerce of Guayaquil are so essentially a Panama Canal traffic that their details do not call for analysis. In the increase of the future the largest proportion belongs to the United States.
The Wharf at Duran
The ambitious project of a railway to connect Guayaquil with Quito, the capital, was many years in assuming form, but the narrow-gauge line is creeping to Quito. The railway starts at Duran, on the bay across from Guayaquil, and runs eastward through a very rich agricultural plateau to Alausi, 80 miles distant, where it bends to the north. The tropical vegetation of foliage and weeds along the roadbed is so very luxuriant that the railway company has found it necessary to erect a plant midway in the hothouse belt for preparing and distributing, by a process of spraying, a solution composed of arsenic and nitre. By means of vats and steam-pipes the ingredients are boiled and dissolved into a strong solution, which is drawn off into a large tank, similar in construction to a regular railway water-tank, from which the spraying-car is filled. When the rainy season opens, the weed-killing plant begins its operations, spraying the roadbed at regular intervals. This is a very interesting feature of tropical railway operation.
Weed-killer Plant, Guayaquil and Quito Railway