Panama to Patagonia

by Charles M. Pepper

Peru has produced sugar for many years, and the industry has had the usual ups and downs, but it has capabilities of increase. About 125,000 acres were under cultivation in 1905, and 25,000 persons found employment on the plantations and in the mills. Both natives and Chinese coolies form the field hands. The production for export in recent years has varied from 100,000 to 125,000 tons, and it is gradually advancing to 200,000, reflecting the decrease of the beet-sugar crop in Europe and some enhancement of the price, though that is subject to the customary fluctuations. The average production may be placed at 140,000 tons, of which between 20,000 and 25,000 tons are consumed at home.

The raw sugar exported in the period from 1900 to 1905 inclusive ranged in value from $5,000,000 to $7,000,000 annually. The by-products, particularly the aguardiente, or cane rum, add substantially to the value of the staple. The alcohol, in addition to the local consumption, finds a profitable market in Bolivia.

The production of sugar-cane per acre in Peru is in the proportion of 56 quintals of sugar from 700 quintals of cane. The plantations are in the valleys of the streams which flow from the foot of the Coast Cordilleras to the ocean. Though the sugar industry is an old one and though partial irrigation is employed, it is doubtful if Peru’s present product is more than a fraction of what the soil can yield under universal irrigation. The cane-producing area is not confined to the coast. In the valley of Chanchamayo in the inter-Andine region are productive regions, and also in the valley of the Apurimac River in southern Peru. It may reasonably be said that within the next quarter of a century, provided the material development of the country goes forward without interruption, Peru will be producing 400,000 tons of sugar-cane, the major portion of which will be freighted through the Panama Canal to New Orleans or Brooklyn refineries at lower rates than can be had by shipments through the Straits of Magellan. Of the output some goes down the coast to Chile and some up the coast to San Francisco, a relatively small quantity around Cape Horn to Liverpool, and a large quantity across the Isthmus for transshipment to New York. The freight via the Straits is about 23 shillings per ton. The Canal is a positive factor in Peruvian sugar production.

Peru imports rice for her own consumption and exports it for foreign consumption. The great rice fields are in the north, in the Lambayeque valley, and from this district in one year 4,100 tons were exported. But much larger imports came from China. The industry is capable of development, yet chiefly with a view to local consumption. The normal expansion of this agricultural industry would appear to be in fully supplying the home demand and then in cultivation for the export trade.

Cotton, sugar, rice,—all call for an artificially watered soil. Irrigation is ancient in Peru. No new system for intensive cultivation and for ordinary crops can be expected to surpass the marvels secured by the Incas. Whether the ruins of the artificial waterworks be those still observed at Cuzco, the ancient seat of empire, or in the great passes of the Central Cordillera now traversed by the railway, or the old aqueduct at Chimbote, the wonder does not lessen. Can the moderns do as well as the ancients? They must do better. While they may not excel the Inca system of aqueducts and of packing water up the perpendicular slopes of the mountains, they may surpass them in inducing production in the arid plains. The topography and hydrography favor artesian wells in some sections and in others complete systems of irrigating ditches. The artesian wells may tap those lost rivers which, starting from the Cordilleras, dry up and reach the sea through subterranean channels. The arid tracts are fertile, probably due to the damp which is retained for a certain depth underground.

Peru has a very excellent irrigation law, the practical workings of which are satisfactory and from which good results have been obtained. The government has given wise attention to this subject.

The future growth of the Coast Region in wealth and population may be said to be largely one of irrigating ditches and artesian wells.[7]

7 On this general subject United States Consul Gottschalk quotes C. Reginald Enock, an English engineer, as follows:

“Peru possesses a valuable element in the yet undeveloped hydraulic power which exists on both the eastern and western slope of the Cordillera of the Andes. The source of this water supply is the ice cap above the line of perpetual snow which crowns the summit of the range and the continual and exceedingly heavy snow and rain storms of the high plateaus. All along this vast chain, from Ecuador to Chile, there exists a series of lakes, practically astride the summit of the Andes, at altitudes varying from 12,000 to 17,000 feet above sea-level, and these, together with the streams to which they give rise, form the source of enormous hydraulic energy. The volumes of water which descend upon the Pacific side are not necessarily very great, but they are numerous and constant, and their fall is exceedingly rapid.

“As an example, the river Rimac, which rises in the ice cap of the Cordillera, at an elevation of more than 17,000 feet, debouches on the coast at Callao, with a course not more than 80 miles long. This river is already used as motive power for generating electricity for the railway between Lima and Callao, and could furnish constant and unlimited power over any portion of its course. Similar conditions exist, more or less, with the numerous other rivers and streams all along the 1,500 miles of Pacific littoral belonging to Peru.”