Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

The zones are the Coast Region, relatively 1,500 miles in length, varying in width from 20 to 80 miles, and extending from the foot of the Coast Range to the Pacific; the Sierra, or Cordilleras of the Andes, including the vast table-lands, averaging 300 miles in breadth; and the misnamed Montaña, or mountain region, actually the land of tropical forest, and plains extending from the eastern slope of the Andes to the Amazon basins. The settlement of the boundary disputes with Ecuador, Colombia, Brazil, and Bolivia may reduce the 500,000 square miles of territory which Peru claims as her area, yet when the limits finally are fixed this trans-Andine region will still comprise more than one-half the total extent. Its wealth is in rubber and the varied products of tropical agriculture. The Sierra, in the future as in the past, is for the minerals, with alpaca wools and live-stock as an agricultural addition.

The Coast Zone is for tropical and temperate products. The principal ones are the vegetable family,—beans, potatoes; the cereals,—wheat, corn, oats; grapes and the generality of fruits; rice, tobacco, sugar, and cotton. Except in reference to two great world staples, they may be viewed almost solely in the light of domestic consumption. Sugar and cotton are on a different plane.

Peruvian cotton production cannot become large enough to affect the world’s markets, yet it may be a gain to the national wealth in the quantity which can be raised for export and also for the domestic spindles. The sands of Piura which stretch from the coast at Paita back to the Cordilleras have in them possibilities that are yet barely dreamed. The cotton tree of Piura amazes the beholder when he sees it in all stages of production,—in bud, in fleecy blossom, and in seed. The quality surprises the expert. It is finer than the finest Egyptian and is equal to certain grades of wool. It is known variously as vegetable wool and as wool cotton. Irrigation is employed to a limited extent. One ambitious scheme which was to bring 60,000 acres under cultivation was stopped for lack of capital. In the Chira valley between 90,000 and 100,000 acres will be utilized for production when a canal 56 miles long is completed, and the crop will be increased by 50,000 bales. An American company experimented on a project of watering the Piura lands by means of pumps to be driven by electric power from the river Quiros. The native field-labor in this region is reliable, and probably is as efficient as that of the negroes on a Mississippi plantation.

Cotton of good quality is raised in the central district of Lima and in the southern region of Pisco and Ica. While rains are not common in these districts, the fogs at certain seasons are heavy enough to be accounted rainfall, and the moisture in the air is precipitated in quantities sufficient for the product, taken with the somewhat restricted means of irrigating employed on the plantations. The cotton plant, no longer the cotton tree as in Piura, is met with for fifty miles north of Lima, and especially in the neighborhood of Ancon. The plantations lie under and between the overlapping sand-hills, side by side with fields of sugar-cane. Cotton is also grown from the north along the river Rimac to the lower slope of the Cordilleras.

Farther south from Pisco the region extends as far as the little port of Cerro de Azul, where an excellent quality is obtained. This is sent north to Panama for transport across the Isthmus and then to Liverpool instead of through the Straits of Magellan or around Cape Horn; but the cargoes will be larger when the Canal is opened and the expense of transshipment by railway across the Isthmus can be avoided. The cotton possibilities of the Pisco region are as yet in their infancy. They will begin to unfold when the projects for irrigating the great plain of Noco are put into effect.

Taken as a whole, the advantages of Peru as a cotton-producing country are a suitable climate, the alluvial soil of the valleys, the facilities for irrigating the sandy plains, and a sufficiency of fairly cheap labor. The price of the land is a fraction of the value of similar soil in Egypt. An official publication of the government places the yield per acre at 630 pounds, of which 250 pounds is lint cotton.

The Peruvian cotton is free from boll weevil. When that pest was ravaging the Texas plantations, a thorough inquiry was made by Minister Dudley under instructions from Washington, and the universal experience of the cotton-growers established that their fields never were visited by it.

Gins for baling the product are imported both from England and the United States. Encouragement has been given the manufacturing industry in Peru by the cotton production. Some of the factories have paid fair returns, though, as in the case of Mexico, capital went into mills somewhat heedlessly and in advance of the demand which could be created for the manufactured goods. Factories, making chiefly the cheaper calicoes, are in operation at Lima, Ica, and Arequipa, where the natives prove satisfactory mill-hands. Part of the manufactures find a market in Bolivia. The total exports of the manufactured goods for a given year were $110,000, while the imports for the same period reached $2,240,000. The exports of raw cotton in the present state of production are approximately $1,500,000 to $1,600,000 annually.

What is known as the hard cotton, rough, is produced in the Piura region, and in the dry years varies from 20,000 to 30,000 bales of 200 pounds. The moderate rough, chiefly from the Ica district, amounts to 40,000 bales. The hard cotton with some of the moderate rough goes to the United States, but the greater portion of the latter is shipped to Havre and Liverpool. The production of the Egyptian, or soft cotton, is about 80,000 bales per year. It is governed by the American price, usually with a premium of 1 to 2 cents per pound over New Orleans middling. The home factories consume 25,000 bales, the bulk of the balance going to Liverpool, though Barcelona obtains 6,000 bales and Genoa 2,000.

From these figures it will be seen that the Peruvian production is about 150,000 bales, or 30,000,000 pounds. An estimate by a leading authority of the increased production when idle lands are brought under cultivation by means of irrigation is 375,000 Peruvian bales (160,000 American), or 75,000,000 pounds. Other authorities double this estimate.