The St. Johns herald., 1898-10-15
ISLAND OF PORTO RICO.
The Melting LcveIiness of Its Tropical
 Laudscape.

The Melting Love1iness of Its Tropical
 Landscape.
 Frederick A. Ober, late commission
 er In Porto Rico of the Columbian Ex- position, contributes to the Century aI article on "The Island of Porto Rico
 Mir. Ober says: In the extreme north. east rises the highest peak of the cen T tral cordillera, in the Luquillo Sierra
 known as "el Yunque," or ''the Anvil, ' variously estimated at from thirty six hundred to forty-five hundred feet in height The hills are of lesser eleva- ton toward the west and southwest, but the whole north-central country is rugged and uneven. Between the spurs from the main range lie innu- soil is of great fertility. The impress sive features of the landscape are the rounded summits of the multitudinous hills, which leave the coast in con- stantly rising pillows that finally break against the cOrdillera vertebra; yet all are cultivable, and cultivated to their very crests, though the higher noun tain peaks are forest-clad.
 l More than thirteen hundred streams, it is said, of which number perhaps forty or fifty attain to the dignity of rivers, rise in the hills and seek the 1 coasts, most of them running northerly, though the best harbOrs are in the west and south. But notwithstanding the great river flow, portions of the Island h the southwest are afflicted with drouth at times, owing to the precipitation of the northeast trades against the northern hills.
 The higher hills are clothed in the exuberant and diversified vegetation of the tropical forest, where tree-ferns flourish, and great gum-trees and mountain palms tower aloft; at lower levels are the cedar and mahogany, walnut and laurel, with many others noted for their useful woods. Through out the island are found those trees and shrubs valuable for their gums, as the nancy, guaiacum, and copal, while the list of medicinal plants includes most of those, invaluable to our phar- macopOeias, which tropical America has given to the world These are the silvestreS, natures wild children; but of cultivated plants there is no species peculiar to the tropics that does not flourish here. In the littOral levels, be- tween the mountains and the sea, grows the sugarcane, which may be cultivated up to an altitude of three thousand feet. It was introduced here from SantO Domingo, having been brought to America either from Spain or the Canaries. The annual yield of sugar is estimated at about seventy thousand tons.
 In these fertile lowlands, also, tobac- co does exceedingly well, and the an nual production is said to be quite seven million pounds. It may be cul- tivated on the hills, but the true noun tain-lover is the coffee, which does not do we'll below six hundred feet, and is at its best a thousand feet above the sea. It was first brought here from Martinique, in 1722, and now yields to the extent of seventeen thousand tons annually. Maize, the true Indian corn, is Indigenous, as is the yucca, the aboriginal staff of life;" and both grow everywhere, as we'll as the pine apple, which is more reliable and more l universal than the peach or our north / temperate zone. Cotton and rice are | fonnd et nearly all elevations, the lat | er, which .s Sue chic. food of many | .H9r6s being what H known as the ,