The table on the opposite page shows the quantity and value of the principal exports of the Dominican Republic since 1913 and is the best illustration of the fact that agriculture is the mainstay of the country.

EXPORTS OF THE DOMINICAN REPUBLIC

1913 1914 1915 1916
Sugar (raw) kilos[1] 78,849,465 101,428,847 102,800,551 122,642,514
value $3,650,556 $4,943,452 $7,676,383 $12,028,297
Cacao kilos 19,470,827 20,744,517 20,223,023 21,053,305
value $4,119,955 $3,896,489 $4,863,754 $5,958,669
Tobacco leaf kilos 9,790,398 3,705,549 6,235,409 7,925,151
value $1,121,775 $394,224 $972,896 $1,433,323
Coffee kilos 1,048,922 1,831,938 2,468,435 1,731,718
value $257,076 $345,579 $458,431 $316,827
Hides and kilos 541,154 685,042 638,020 616,446
skins value $241,072 $253,832 $270,356 $334,665
Sugar cane value — $62,585 $195,782 $295,622
Bananas bunches 592,804 114,142 327,169 348,560
value $296,368 $57,044 $166,432 $172,615
Beeswax and
honey value $206,749 $207,290 $144,579 $176,144
Molasses kilos 12,064,038 17,962,441 15,484,205 18,752,440
value $60,737 $93,787 $100,023 $120,738
Forest value $167,037 $66,464 $64,368 $57,250
products
Cotton kilos 242,221 167,123 141,623 91,258
value $85,398 $67,830 $60,600 $31,759
All other value $263,224 $200,211 $240,457 $601,964
exports
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Total value $10,469,947 $10,588,787 $15,209,061 $21,527,873

[Footnote 1: 1 kilo = 2.2 pounds]

Sugar, the leading export, is the principal product of the southern portion of the Republic. In contrast with the cultivation of cacao, coffee and tobacco, sugar planting requires a large outlay of capital. The fields must be carefully prepared, extensive ditching must be done in order to provide irrigation during the dry season; the fields must be cleaned repeatedly while the cane is growing; and when the cane eventually matures, after fourteen to eighteen months of growth, it must upon cutting be immediately transported to the mill, where expensive machinery grinds it and fabricates sugar from the cane juice. The large sugar plantations of the country are all owned by foreigners, principally Americans and Italians, but dependent upon them are many small plots, planted under contract with the central factory by small native owners or contractors. Before the establishment of the first of these plantations near Macoris in the early eighties, the apparatus for making sugar was as crude as that employed by the first colonists, consisting of small presses turned by oxen, and large caldrons to boil the cane. The other West India Islands are dotted with the ruins of old sugar mills erected in the beginning and middle of the last century, but those days were not favorable to investment in Santo Domingo and such buildings and ruins are absolutely wanting in this island.

Most of the large plantations are located in the vicinity of San Pedro de Macoris, and to them the city owes its rapid development. These represent a value of millions of dollars, are equipped with plantation railroads and modern mills and extend over thousands of acres of the plains behind the city. The great Consuelo estate, the Santa Fé plantation, the Porvenir and the Puerto Rico estates are owned by American capital, and two others, the Quisqueya and Cristobal Colon plantations are owned by Americans and Cubans. The Angelina estate is an Italian investment, but its owners hold it in the name of the General Industrial Company, a corporation organized by them under the laws of New Jersey, apparently with a view to claiming American protection in case of disturbances. The principal owners of this estate as well as of other Italian sugar estates on the south coast are heirs of J.B. Vicini, who was a wealthy Italian merchant of Santo Domingo City.

One of the largest sugar estates of the Republic is the Central Romana, which controls some 40,000 acres near the port of La Romana, and is owned by the South Porto Rico Sugar Company. Since the first crop in 1911 the cane has been shipped to the mill at Guanica, Porto Rico, for grinding, but a huge fifteen-roller mill, which will be the largest on the island, is now in course of erection at La Romana.

Two plantations near Santo Domingo City, San Isidro and La Fé, belong to Americans. The Italia sugar estate at Yaguate, near the Nizao River, the Ocoa estate and the Central Azuano, on the outskirts of Azua all belong to the Vicini heirs. At Azua there is another plantation, the Ansonia estate, which is the property of Americans. The plantations at Azua and Ocoa are watered by irrigation, those of Azua deriving their water from artesian wells. American capital is also establishing sugar plantations near Barahona. On the north coast there are only two small sugar plantations near Puerto Plata, in which German and Spanish capital is interested, but another is being established at Sosua.

So rich are the Dominican lands that cane will grow from the same root for ten and even twenty years, while in Porto Rico and the lesser Antilles long cultivation has exhausted the soil and replanting is necessary every three years. Near Macoris the planters have had so much land available that instead of replanting they have often abandoned their old fields and taken up virgin lands instead. The busiest time in Macoris is the crop season from November to May. Many laborers are then required, and as native labor is not abundant, large numbers of negroes come from the British West Indies to work on the plantations, returning to their homes when the cane has been cut.

Most of the Dominican sugar goes to the United States and a large portion is eventually sold in Canada and England. When the amount of sugar produced in little Porto Rico is compared with that grown in Santo Domingo, it is evident that the Dominican production might easily be increased to twenty times its present figure.