The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-06-22
By Andrew James Miller.

has been proposed by the late Pan-Amer- lean Congress, has so many attractive
 and feasible enterprise, that am not
 in the least surprised that the President
 has grasped its stupandous possibilities and recommended the preliminary inves- for our own country. even greater pos abilities than the great Trans-Siberian Railway. which is now approaching com pletion, across the vast Asiatic posses sions of Russia. This Siberian road, con- structed under stupendous difficulties. for a distance of over 4.oo0 miles. will cost nearly twice as much per mile; as the Pan-American road, yet the Russian Gov greater earning capacity than any other railway system of that vast empire.
 England is engaged in a similar enter
 price with the Cape to Cairo railroad, which is intended to penetrate the very
 heart of Darkest Africa" and when
 open to civilization and commerce. an
 empire of incalculable possibilities. Had
 not 500 miles of this road been completed
 into the Boer country it Is probable that
 have been a physical impossibility.. The
 commercial advantages of this wonderful
 enterprise. in traversing the great ana
 rich virgin territory of interior Africa.
 are recognized by every student Of pro-
 gross and development and will eventu- ally win to England a greater volume of
 trade than she has lost to her powerfui
 competitors on the seas and elsewhere. Our own Union Pacific Railway. stim-
 ulated and subsidized by the Government, is further illustration of similar en- terprise, while it Is unnecessary to emu
 merate teven if possible to do sol the im-
 measurable advantages which have ac-
 crued in the development of the great
 West.
 It Is thus seen that this Inter-Conti-
 mental project of railway. that will
 extend from the United States to Cape \ Horn, is abundantly Justified by prece-
 dent, while its possibilities, in the devel- opment of new and incalculable vol tune of trade, will easily exceed anything
 ever anticipated from either the Trans Siberian or Cape Railways.
 In the first place. it requires no stretch
 of the imagination to realize that the
 tropical fruit industry, great as 1t now
 Is, and employing annually 15.oO0 ears
 to move it, Is really in it's infancy. Pos
 sibly S5 per cent. of all we receive now
 comes from Honduras and Costa Rica,
 and is necessarily brought in a way to
 cause great loss in transportation. While
 this volume of business Is annually in- creasing 1t has never even approximated to the demand. such as would at once
 become manifest with a larger and cheap
 CT supply. And 1t is well not to overlook
 the fact that a larger and cheaper sup
 ply of tropical fruits is decidedly in fa-
 vor of public health. This fact needs
 no demonstration, as abundantly attested
 by medical experts. Furthermore. out
 side of bananas and cocoanuts. we re-
 ceive practically nothing else, although the tropics are teeming with other valu-
 able and nutritious fruits, including or
 anges, Hines. apricots. guavas. mangoes.
 aguacates, shaddocks. tamartnds, pine apples and scores of other delightful fruits, which grow abundantly anywhere from Mexico to Chilli, but the want of transportation facilities has confined their cultivation, to meagre demands of the natives. These are so abundantly supplied by nature. with every want that they gather a large portion of their supplies from the wild state of the vegetable kingdom.
 If a railway was available to transport such products to the great markets of the North, it has been computed that the development of the fruit industry alone, in a short time would call into re- quisition one hundred thousand cars an- nually.
 The same thing is equally true of cof- fee. We receive the major portion Of our American supply from Brazil and Venezuela. While the Mexican and Guat- emalan grades are equally as good, the hindrance of proper transportaton mas caused vast. rich cof1ee districts Tn those countries to remain idle. Instead of Cor dova, Mexico, Champerico and Ocos, Guatemala. and a few districts of Costa Rica producing a few thousand bags.
 this supply could be stimulated into mil | lions, with proper transportation facill- l ties, to their. bes. coffee lands. Indeed. | 1t is quite easy to accurately calculate | that the present embryonic coffee in- dustry of Mexico and Central America would multiply a hundred fold. under the | inspiration of proper railway facilities, while the larger output and cheaper | transportation would materially reduce | the price to consumers. This can pc H. | lustrated, when it is known that. outside all the cost of raising and gathering the l coffee crop of Coban, Guatemala, 1t costs about per cent. of its value to trans | port it, by mule back, to the nearest shipping point at Lake lsabal. It was | formerly true of the superb coffee dis tricts of Chacao. and the mountain re- gions about Caracas. Venezuela, where the production has been quadrupled m few years with the introduction of rail roads Coffee lands have proporuonaily advanced in price. The most important question connected with coffee is the new
 and improved machinery: necessary to lts economic production and preparation for market. This machinery is very bulky and heavy, and cannot be transported over indifferent roads. in the old-fash-
 toned way. by m lle-ba:k. Consequently the successful coffee raiser must be con- venient to railway transportation. The whole coffee output of Mexico and Gen. tral America is now less than l,5OO.OOO bags (of 132 pounds), while the consumption in the United States alone is close to 320, 900 tons, at cost of $5S, DOC, 900. which makes us the greatest coffee drinking | nation in the world.
 l No good reason can be advanced why at least 90 per cent. of the requirements | of this country cannot be produced along | a line of railway, tapping the rich coffee lands of Mexico. Central America and | the Western slopes of the Andes in 1 Northern South America. It would cer- | tainly supplant the Brazilian supply or | over S,OO0,00 pounds. and take precedence l of Venezuela. Haytt and the West ln- | dies. which now send us about 2,OOO,OOU
 When we contemplate the development I of the cereal industry. which would be | stimulated by tho railway. figures will 1 almost fail to convey an accurate ldea. | Corn can be grown from the tropics to | 47 degrees North Latitude. and there IS l nossihlv no plant that has such ca- | nacit to accommodate itself to new con- l ditions of temperature. Tschudi found | ears of this grain in many of the Pe- l ruvian tombs and even some Farletles, which are now unknown in that country. | With facilities of suitable soils. condi- | lions of temperature. cheap labor. season | able rains and everything to produce this valuable grain, scarcely enough for home consumption is now raised in any part | of tropical America. In fact. in most of | these republics, it's. price ranges from $l.25 to S2 50 per bushel, while it is at the iy in the 6O,0O0,000 people constituting these Latin-American republics, who are not daily dependent on corn as food nroduct Is it not reasonable to suppose that with proper railroad facilities, inn proved methods of farming, etc, that
 the product of corn in these countries could be raised from practically nothing. to a figure approXimating the two billion bushel output of the United States? The reasons for the sta2nation of this indus fry are many, but mainly transportation facilities and suitable markets, as well