it costing 10 cents to send a letter to any part of the Republic outside of the department in which it is mailed, and 5 cents within said department, but Peru is in the Postal Union and enjoys cheap foreign postage.

Owing to the exorbitant rates of railroad freight, a great deal of the transportation of the country is still done with donkeys and mules on trails alongside the steam lines. Until of late fuel for steam locomotion has been very expensive, and at times difficult to procure. But the successful development of petroleum wells has solved the question of cheap fuel, and it is now being introduced on the various lines of the Republic.

Lima is lighted by electricity, of which the plant, being of the

Thomson-Houston type, is the property of the gas company, which has supplied to the streets of the city 50 arc lights and 3,000 incandescent lamps. The system has taken well among private citizens for stores, theaters, halls, and private houses. Callao is about adopting similar improvements.

Chapter IV.

AGRICULTURAL CONDITION

SUGAR, RUM, COTTON, RAMIE, WINES, RICE, DOMESTIC ANIMALS, ALFALFA, POTATOES, GRAIN, COCA, CACAO, HIDES AND SKINS, TOBACCO, FRUITS AND VEGETABLES, COFFEE, CINCHONA, RUBBER, WOOLEN

MANUFACTURES.

When war broke out between Peru and Chile, Peru could boast of possessing at Lurifico and Palo Seco the heaviest sugarproducing plant in the world. Lurifico, being the property of an American citizen who knew how to protect his rights in such a way that even a pirate would find it expedient to respect them, escaped destruction while the property of Palo Seco was laid in ruins. Sugar is cultivated in all the valleys of the Zona Seca, beginning at the extreme north of the Republic and extending to the valley of the Chincha, south of Lima. The best sugar machinery in the country was built at Philadelphia, but some has been brought from Europe. All the sugar estates are connected by railroads with the ports of the coast.

When Chile declared war against Peru the value of sugar produced had risen from $432,000 in 1859, to $6,528,000, of which by far the greater portion was taken by England. The production was almost destroyed by the poverty resulting from the war, but has already risen to a figure that promises for Peru the position of being one of the foremost sugar-producing countries of the world, being at this time $6,000,000 and advancing.

Rum distillation follows naturally as an important industry of the sugar estate. The product is used largely for cooking fuel in a country where fuel is required for no other purpose.

Cotton is the principal article of export from the port of Paita in the north, as Piura is the center of its production and preparation for the market. This industry has had a steady growth ever since it began to attract serious attention in 1862, when 3,362 quintals were sent to Liverpool by way of experiment. The American civil war created a demand for the article, and the price rose to 38 cents a pound. In 1864 the exportation had risen to more than 41,000 quintals, and has since then fluctuated with the ability of the cotton region to produce a crop. This ability depends on the occurrence of floods, which are expected once in seven years, and irrigate a narrow section along the margin of the River Piura, while they inundate the whole valley of the Chira and the Tumbez farther north. These floods secure planting, which bears a crop in the same year and two crops a year for two years thereafter; in all, five good crops, of which the first and fifth are light, the second and fourth excellent, and the third of extraordinary abundance.

All the cotton of the Department of Piura is classed as “rough Peruvian," but in fact there is a considerable difference between the character of cotton raised in the valley of the Rio Piura and that raised in the other valleys. And this character can not be produced nor preserved in other situations from the same seed for reasons that seem to depend on the peculiarity of climate. The Piura staple is long, like all the Peruvian article, but it has a texture assimilating it so closely to wool that it has been called "vegetable wool," it is soiral and is used by the woolen manufacturers in the manufacture of ladies' fine merino underwear and fine hosiery. Its use has been extended in the American market in proportion as it has been possible to procure it.

Up to 1884 the exports of this singular cotton had been confined to the Liverpool market, although it had been shipped thence to New York. But in 1885 Messrs. F. Hilbek & Co. sent a small venture to New York, and the direct importation to

Bull. 60-4

this country has continually increased. So great has become the demand for the article among our manufacturers that in spite of the enormous cotton crop of our Southern States in 1890-91 we imported 19,300 quintals of the Peruvian article, from Liverpool in great part, although the production of that year in the Piura Valley was only 15,000 quintals.

During the first three months of 1892 there were imported into New York, direct from Piura, 8,886 quintals, and the importation. continues in an increasing ratio. The present prospect is that the United States will soon require more than is produced. There is good reason for this. The cotton of Piura does not enter into competition with American cotton, since it is not used for any purpose for which cotton is in demand, but to supersede the more expensive article of wool. Nor can it be rated a deleterious compound, since it adds to the luster of the goods, their strength, and ability to resist shrinking, while it makes them softer and in every sense more luxurious.

In the year ending June 30, 1891, the United States imported from Liverpool 1,500,000 pounds of Peruvian cotton. It ranged in price, where purchased, from 11 cents to 20 cents a pound. As an illustration of comparative values of the various classes of cotton in these importations we may take two shipments, noted in the official report of Consul Sherman, March 16, 1892, forwarded respectively by the houses named:

The cotton plant of Peru is a beautiful object, containing, all at one time, the flower, green boll, and open cotton ready for gathering. It is not planted annually, like the cotton of the North American States, but once put into the ground is left until a new septennial flood brings a new inspiration of life, when the old plant is pulled out and a hole dug with a spade, into which the new seed is dropped and left until in its own good time it is again ready for picking. This seed has been taken to other regions which it was thought offered better advantages of soil, but every attempt of the kind to raise the extraordinary class of cotton peculiar to Piura has proven only failure.

Within the year 1892 a new discovery in Peruvian cotton has been developed. There had long grown in the valley of the Piura River a unique variety of the article, supposed to be useless for exportation. It is a tan color of various shades, from a light café au lait to a decided brown, rather dark, and always delicate. Separated from the seed, the almost universal verdict would declare the article to be a beautifully fine wool. Hitherto this colored cotton has been used only by the lower class of native Indians for the manufacture of their heavier ponchos. About a year ago, however, an invoice was sent to Liverpool, and the result has been extraordinary. An experimental shipment was also sent to California and answer received that the woolen mills of that State could absorb all that could be raised. It has created a furore among woolen men, who find in it the most perfect imitation of wool that has yet been produced, requiring no dyeing to prepare it for a popular color in underwear and hosiery. In the English market where it has been sold it has commanded 2 cents a pound more than other cottons, except the North American sea island. The Government of Peru has given a valuable concession of irrigation rights to an American engineer, who made the surveys of such a system several years ago, and who is now engaged in the United States in raising capital for the construction of such a work, with fair prospect of success. Cotton of