Many shiploads of these shells are brought to New York
from Puerto Rico and other parts of the West Indies every year.
* * * * *
PLANT LIFE.
Puerto Rico seems to us to be one big flower garden. All kinds of fruit
grow wild and most wild plants blossom and bear fruit several times a
year.
Cultivated fruits, flowers and vegetables are planted several times a
year in order that a fresh supply may always be at hand. Flowers bloom
every month of the year, but are most plentiful in June. Ferns, in some
instances, grow to spreading trees, with graceful drooping fronds. Many
plants have colored leaves which are as brilliant as the flowers
themselves.
[Illustration: BRANCH AND FRUIT OF THE CACAO TREE.]
Everywhere grow trees and shrubs valuable for their fruit or for their
medicinal qualities.
The leading crops are sugar cane, coffee and tobacco. Over one-half of
the exports consists of coffee, and a little less than one-fourth, of
sugar. Cacao and fruits make a large part of the remainder.
[Illustration: A PUERTO RICAN SUGAR MILL.]
Rice forms the chief food of the laboring classes, and this grows, not
on the wet lowlands, as in our country, but on the mountain sides.
Bananas and plantains are two of the important food products. Next to
these, the yam and the sweet potato form the diet of the natives.
Among the fruit trees we find cocoanut palms, tamarinds, prickly pears,
guavas, mangoes, bananas, oranges, limes, cacao (or cocao) trees and
lemons.
