OCCUPATIONS OF THE PEOPLE OF MEXICO.
Agriculture. — Although the main business of the country is agriculture, this branch of industry is carried on under exceptionally disadvantageous circumstances.
One of its greatest drawbacks is, that the whole country is divided up into immense haciendas or landed estates, small farms being rarely known; and, out of a population of ten million or more, the title to the soil (apart from the lands held by the Indian communities) is said to vest in not more than five or six thousand persons. Some of these estates comprise square leagues instead of square acres in extent, and are said to have irrigating ditches from forty to fifty miles in length. Most of the land of such estates is uncultivated, and the water is wasted upon the remainder in the most reckless manner. The titles by which such properties are held are exceedingly varied, and probably to a considerable extent uncertain. Some originated with the Spanish crown, through its viceroys, and have been handed down from generation to generation; some came from Mexico, through its governors or political chiefs; while, over a not inconsiderable part of all the good land of the country, the titles of the Church, although not recognized by the Government, are still, to a certain extent, respected. As agricultural land generally upon the Mexican plateau, has little or no value apart from the use and control of water, it has come to pass that in various communities the title to land is vested in the water-right; and a small land-owner or farmer, instead of holding deeds for the land he occupies, owns a right to so many minutes, hours, or days of water per month—that is, he is entitled to draw from the main irrigation ditch, which skirts or runs through his land, water for so long a time each month, and to cultivate so much land as this water will irrigate. These rights to water, which are therefore equivalent to titles to land, are, like land-titles, inheritable, and subject to the laws of descent; and so scattered sometimes have become the heirs to such rights, that the result, very curiously, is often the loss of any power of sale by those actually remaining in possession. Thus, in Northern Mexico, according to Consul Sutton, there are persons whose only claim to use the general grazing-lands belonging to the community, and to cut wood upon the same, is the ownership of ten seconds of water per month, and yet even this small right entitles them to hold for their exclusive use such land as they may have under fence, and to live on community land so long as they can build themselves a house and make their ten seconds of water answer their purpose. In such communities agriculture is paralyzed, and, as the only person affected by this pernicious system is the small farmer, the very foundation of progressive cultivation of land is undermined wherever it exists.
Added to all this, there is a marked indisposition on the part of the large owners of real estate in Mexico to divest themselves of such property; and this for various reasons. Thus, in the heretofore almost permanently revolutionary condition of the country, the tenure of movable or personal property was subject to embarrassments from which real estate, or immovable property, was exempt. Under the system of taxation which has long prevailed in Mexico, land also is very lightly burdened. And, finally, from what is probably an inherited tradition from Old Spain, the wealthy Mexican seems to be prejudiced against investing in co-operative (stock) or financial enterprises—the railways, banks, and mines, in both Old Spain and Mexico, for example, being to-day mainly owned and controlled by English or other foreign capitalists. Under such circumstances, there is no influx of immigrants into Mexico with a view to agriculture, and settlements, such as spring up and flourish in the United States almost contemporaneously with the construction of the "land-grant" and other railroads, are unknown, and are not at present to be expected; all of which clearly works to the great disadvantage of all Mexican railway enterprise and construction. It is also interesting to note, in connection with this subject, that it is the immobility and uncertainty of these same old Spanish or Mexican land-grants, which cover a vast portion of New Mexico, that constitute at present the greatest obstacle in the way of the growth and development of that Territory.
Statutes offering great inducements for permanent immigration—such as a bonus to each immigrant, the right to purchase public lands at moderate prices and on long terms, the right to naturalization and citizenship, and the like—were enacted by the Mexican Congress as far back as 1875, but as yet do not appear to have been productive of any marked results.
On the other hand, the Mexican land laws discriminate very rigorously against the acquirement of land by foreigners who do not propose to become Mexican citizens, and seem to be especially framed to prevent any encroachments on the part of the United States. Thus, no foreigner who is a citizen of any country adjoining Mexico may, without previous permission of the President of the Republic, acquire real estate in any of the border States, within twenty leagues (sixty miles) of the frontier; but such permission has of late been freely given to citizens of the United States for the acquirement of ranching property on the northern frontier. The ownership of real estate by a foreigner in either country or city, within fifteen miles of the coast, is, however, absolutely forbidden, by a provision of the Mexican Constitution. By the Constitution of Mexico also, a foreigner who purchases any real estate in that country, without declaring that he retains his nationality, becomes a citizen of Mexico; and it is difficult to see how under such conditions he could properly invoke any protection from the country of his prior citizenship, in case he considered his rights in Mexico to be invaded.
The laws regulating mining property in Mexico are very peculiar. No one in Mexico, be he native or foreigner, can own a mine absolutely, or in fee, no matter what he may pay for it. He may hold it indefinitely, so long as he works it; but under an old Spanish law, promulgated as far back as 1783, and still recognized, if he fails "to work it for four consecutive months, with four operatives, regularly employed, and occupied in some interior or exterior work of real utility and advantage," the title is forfeited and reverts to the state; and the mine may be "denounced," and shall belong, under the same conditions, "to the denouncer who proves its desertion." The denouncer, to keep the property, must, however, at once take possession and begin the prescribed work within a period of sixty days. Any person also may denounce a mine, no matter upon whose land it may be found; and also have the right to a ready access to it. This practice has one great advantage over the American mining system; and that is, that litigation about original titles and conflicting claims to mining property are comparatively rare in Mexico.
On the plateau of Mexico, where nine tenths of its present population live, there is undoubtedly much good land; but the great drawback to this whole region, as already pointed out, is its lack of water. During the rainy season, which commences in June and lasts about four months, there is a plentiful rainfall for Central and Southern Mexico; but in Northern Mexico the rainfall, for successive years, is not unfrequently so deficient as to occasion large losses, both in respect to stock and to crops. For the remainder of the year, or for some eight months, little or no rain falls, and the climatic characteristic is one of extreme dryness. During the most of the year, therefore, the whole table-land of Mexico is mainly dependent for its water-supply upon a comparatively few springs and storage-reservoirs; and Agriculture can not be generally carried on without resorting to some form of irrigation. One rejoinder to what may be an unfavorable inference from these statements has been the counter-assertion that "in the immediate neighborhood of the large cities enough grain is raised by irrigation to keep constantly more than a year's extra supply ahead to provide against a possible failure of crops"; and, further, that the storage capacity of the existing reservoirs of Mexico might easily be increased, and thus greatly extend the area of land capable of cultivation. But, admitting this, how great must be the obstacles in the way of developing any country where there is a liability to an almost entire failure of the crops from drought; and where the small agricultural proprietor, who depends on each year's earnings to meet each year's needs, has always got to anticipate and guard against such a possibility! There are vast tracts of land also in Mexico, especially in the northern part, where grass sufficient for moderate pasturage will grow all or nearly all the year, but on which the water-holes are so few, and so entirely disappear in the dry season, that stock can not live on them. In a report recently sent (January, 1885) to the State Department, by Warner P. Sutton, United States consul-general to Matamoros, the statement is made that the annual value of the agricultural products of the State of South Carolina, having an area of 30,570 square miles, is at least two and a half times as great as the whole like product of the six States of Northern Mexico—namely, Tamaulipas, Nuevo Leon, Coahuila, Chihuahua, Lower California, and Sonora—which have an area of 355,000 square miles, and represent about one half of the territory of the whole republic; or, making allowance for the areas of land under comparison, the annual agricultural product of South Carolina is from twenty to twenty-five times as valuable as that of the whole northern half of Mexico!
At the same time, while nearly all of Northern Mexico, in common with New Mexico and Arizona and the western part of Texas, is notably a very dry country, it has vast tracts covered with highly nutritious grasses, which are eminently fitted for the pasturage of horses, cattle, and sheep; and which at the present time, as they have been for many years past, are abundantly stocked with these animals. In fact, the whole so-called "cattle-range business" had its origin, not in the United States, but in this section of Mexico, whence the current phrases, the manners, customs, and the methods of doing business have been derived and copied all over the United States, wherever live-stock is raised, as it is termed, "on the range." Here also was the original home and origin of the cow-boy; and here, to-day, "herding" constitutes the basis of nearly all business, and the source of nearly all subsistence, profits, and wealth of the inhabitants. Everybody here, as has been remarked, "is more or less of a cow-boy—the lawyer, the doctor, the shoemaker, the tailor, the merchant, and even the editor"; for it is "the man with the spurs and the lariat that gives character to this whole region."
On the "tierras calientes" or comparatively narrow belt of coast-lands, on both the Atlantic and Pacific sides of Mexico, there is abundance of wood and water, cheap and fertile land, and most luxuriant vegetation, but the climate is such that the white races will never live there in the capacity of laborers. When one hears, therefore, of possibilities of these regions in respect to coffee, sugar, tobacco, and a wide range of other valuable tropical products, this fact has got to be taken into account. They would, however, seem to be particularly adapted to the introduction and employment of Chinese labor; and during the past year delegations from the associated Chinese Companies of San Francisco have, it is understood, entered into negotiations with the Mexican Government, with a view of promoting an extensive immigration into these portions of the national territory.
In the State of Yucatan the scourge of locusts prevails to such an extent that almost the only agricultural product on which the planter can confidently rely is the plant that furnishes the fiber of the heniquen, which for some reason the locusts do not attack. Fields of maize, well developed in this section of Mexico, are said to be devoured level with the ground by these pests in the course of a single hour.
Again, much of the best land of the plateau of Mexico is in the nature of valleys surrounded by mountains, or of strips or sections separated by deserts. Thus, for example, to get from the city of Mexico into the fertile valley of Toluca, a comparatively short distance, one has to ascend nearly three thousand feet within the first twenty-four miles: while between Chihuahua and Zacatecas there is an immense desert tract, over which the "Mexican Central Railway" has to transport in supply-tanks the water necessary for its locomotives. It is true that in both of these instances the natural difficulties have now in a great measure been remedied by railroad constructions; but when it is remembered that, outside of the leading cities and towns of Mexico, there are hardly any wheeled vehicles, save some huge, cumbersome carts with thick, solid, wooden wheels (a specimen of which, exhibited as a curiosity, may be seen in the National Museum at Washington); that the transportation of commodities is mainly effected on the backs of donkeys or of men; that the roads in Mexico, as a general thing, are hardly deserving of the name;[1] and that, even with good, ordinary roads and good teams and vehicles at command, a ton of corn worth twenty-five dollars at a market is worth nothing at a distance of a hundred and twenty miles—remembering these things, one can readily accept the statement that, in many sections of Mexico, no effort is made to produce anything in the way of crop products, except what has been found necessary to meet the simplest wants of the producers; and for the reason that experience has proved to them that it was not possible to obtain anything in exchange for their surplus.
The plow generally in use in Mexico is a crooked stick, with sometimes an iron point; the yoke being lashed with rawhide thongs to the horns of the oxen which draw the prehistoric implement. American plows are beginning to be introduced to a considerable extent; but the Mexican peasant on coming into possession of one, generally cuts off one handle, in order to make it conform, as far as he can, to his ancient implement; and in recognition of this peculiarity of habit, an Illinois firm has recently introduced a form of plow with one handle! A bundle of brush constitutes the harrow. "Their hoes are heavy grub-hoes, and grass is cut by digging it up with such a hoe." "The sickle is of the conventional type of the time of the patriarchs, but, instead of having a sharp edge, it is provided with saw-teeth, and is used in gathering small grain, the employment of a cradle for such a purpose being unknown. In nearly all of Mexico, with the exception of some few districts, all grain is thrashed by the feet of horses or mules, which are driven round in a ring, the straw having been first spread on the ground, and the grain is separated from the chaff by the action of the wind. One objection urged by the Mexicans to thrashing-machines is that they leave the straw whole, while by the use of horses it is by the constant trampling cut up as fine as though run through a feed-cutter, and, as this straw is universally used as feed, any further preparation is obviated."—Consul Campbell.
On not a few of the great haciendas of Mexico American and English agricultural machinery has, however, been introduced, and more or less used. But cheapness of manual labor and the great cost incident to transportation, local taxes, etc. (agricultural machinery being free from import duties), constitute serious drawbacks to the introduction of improved machinery into the country. Added to this, should any part of a costly and unfamiliar machine break upon one of the great estates, no Mexican blacksmith can repair it—especially if the broken part is cast-iron—and the machine, in most cases, is laid aside for that season.
Nothing exhibits more strikingly the present poverty of Mexico, and the present inefficiency of her agriculture—notwithstanding the natural advantages claimed for this industry, and that it is undoubtedly the principal occupation and support of her people—than a brief comparison of some of the results which have been recently reported for Mexico and the United States. According to a report published in 1883, by M. Bodo von Glaimer, an accepted Mexican authority, and other data, gathered and published by Señor Cubas, United States Consul-General Sutton, and the Agricultural Bureau at Washington, the value of all the leading agricultural products of Mexico—corn, wheat, sugar, tobacco, beans, coffee, and the like—for the year 1882 was estimated at about $175,000,000. But the present estimated value of the oat-crop alone of the United States is $180,000,000. Again, corn constitutes the staple food of the Mexican people, and its product for 1882 was estimated at about 213,000,000 bushels; which, with an assumed population of ten million, would give a product of 213⁄10 bushels per capita. But for the United States for the year 1885 the product of corn was about thirty-three bushels per capita.
Although much of the soil of Mexico is undoubtedly well adapted to the cultivation of wheat, it is as yet a crop little grown or used—wheat-bread being eaten only by the well-to-do classes. Its product for 1882 was estimated at 12,500,000 bushels, or at the rate of about 13⁄10 bushel per capita; while for the year 1885, with a very deficient crop, the wheat product of the United States was in excess of six bushels per capita. Mexican coffee is as good as, and probably better than, the coffee of Brazil, and yet Mexico in 1883-'84 exported coffee to all countries to the value of only $1,717,190, while the value of the exports of coffee from Brazil to the United States alone, for the year 1885, was in excess of $30,000,000! Much has also been said of the wonderful adaptation of a great part of the territory of Mexico for the production of sugar, and everything that has been claimed may be conceded; but, at the same time, sugar is not at present either produced or consumed in comparatively large quantities in Mexico, and, in common with coffee—another natural product of the country—is regarded rather as a luxury than as an essential article of food. Thus the sugar product of Mexico for the year 1877-'78 the latest year for which data are readily accessible, amounted to only 154,549,662 pounds. Assuming the product for the present year (1886) to be as great as 200,000,000 pounds, this would give a Mexican per capita consumption of only twenty pounds as compared with a similar present consumption in the United States of nearly fifty pounds. The further circumstance that Mexico at the present time imports more sugar than it exports; and that the price of sugar in Mexico is from two to four times as great as the average for the United States—coarse-grained, brownish-white, unrefined sugar retailing in the city of Mexico for twelve and a half cents a pound (with coffee at twenty-five cents)—is also conclusive on this point.[2] With the present very poor outlook for the producers of cane sugars in all parts of the world, owing mainly to the bounty stimulus offered by the governments of Europe for the production of beet-sugar; and the further fact that the only hope for the former is in the use of the most improved machinery, and the making of nothing but the best sugars at the point of cane production, the idea so frequently brought forward that labor and capital are likely to find their way soon into the hot, unhealthy coast-lands of Mexico, in preference to Cuba and South America, and that the country is to be speedily and greatly profited by her natural sugar resources, has little of foundation. And, as additional evidence on these matters, the writer would here mention, that a statement has come to him from a gentleman who has been long connected and thoroughly acquainted with the "Vera Cruz and City of Mexico Railroad," which runs through the best sugar and coffee territory of the country, that not a single acre of land more is now under cultivation along its line than there was at the time the road was completed, thirteen years ago. Added to which, export taxes, in some of the sugar-producing States—notably that of Vera Cruz—have been imposed to such an extent as to actually prevent the starting of sugar-plantations.
The cotton-plant is supposed to be indigenous to Mexico, as Cortes on his first landing found the natives clothed in cotton fabrics of their own manufacture. Its culture has continued to the present day, but with very little improvement on the methods which existed at the time of the conquest.
The fiber of Mexican cotton is larger than and not so soft and lustrous as American, but cotton production in some sections of the country possesses this signal advantage, that for several succeeding seasons the plants continue to bear profitable crops, while in the United States the soil must each year be enriched with fertilizers and the seed renewed.The completion of the railways leading to the United States has prejudiced the market and greatly diminished the production of cotton in Mexico, as cotton can now be imported without the expense and delay that were hitherto unavoidable.
Potatoes are grown to a small extent in Mexico. The seed appears to degenerate, and needs frequent changes. A sort of sweet-potato, called the camote, is grown, but not extensively. Whatever, therefore, may be the natural capabilities of Mexico for agriculture, they are certainly for the future rather than of the present.
- ↑ One of the most noted routes in Mexico is from the capital to Acapulco, the best Mexican port on the Pacific; a route that was traveled and constituted a part of the transit for convoys of treasure and rich tropical products between the Indies and Old Spain, a hundred years before the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth. And yet a journey over this route, a distance of three hundred miles, consumes ten days on horseback under the most favorable auspices; and the path or trail followed has in great part so few of the essentials of a road that, in popular parlance, it is spoken of as "buen camino de pajaros" (a good road for birds).
- ↑ Sugar at La Paz, Lower California, sells for twenty-five cents a pound. In Sonora, where the sugar-cane grows naturally, a dark, coarse sugar is manufactured, but not in quantities sufficient for home consumption, about two thirds of the quantity consumed being imported from the United States or Central America. At Guerrero the price of white American is reported at twenty-five cents and of brown Mexican at five cents.