(1914-15)

In order to maintain the population of a country, there must be about 400 children between the ages of one and five years for every thousand women between the ages of fifteen and forty-five. The following table shows how Porto Rico compares in this respect with other countries.

Thus we see that the rate of increase of the population of Porto Rico is much greater than that of the United States. When we take into consideration the advancement being made in sanitary science in Porto Rico and in the elimination of disease, as well as the increased facilities for caring for sickness, we may expect that the rate of increase here will be augmented each year.

The general opinion is that Porto Rico is so thickly populated that a crisis is inevitable, unless some means is found for remedying the present situation. It does not seem, however, that we are justified in coming to such a conclusion when we consider the much more densely populated countries of Belgium and Saxony. Increased production of the soil due to intensive agriculture, and modern methods of farming, as well as the breaking up of the land into small farms, have been the means of taking care of the vast populations of European countries where climatic conditions are not as favorable as they are in Porto Rico. Of the total acreage of Porto Rico about 94 per cent is in farms, and we find that only 30,000 people are directly dependent upon these farms for their support. Of the total number of acres included in farm land, about 75 per cent is improved and under cultivation, so that there is still about one quarter of the land that can be devoted to agriculture when it has been connected with markets, or by other means rendered available for this purpose. There are in Porto Rico more than 58,000 farms, 46,779 of which are operated by their owners. These, in the great majority of cases, are small farms and are of the kind which bring the greatest amount of benefit to the Island. Some 10,000 farms are operated by tenants, and these farms also are usually small.

The following table shows the number of farms of various sizes in the Island to-day:

Of the owners and tenants of these farms 44,521 are white and 13,850 are colored. About 95 per cent of all the owned farms are free from mortgage. The average size of the farms in Porto Rico is about 35¾ acres.

The experience of European countries has been that large farms, in a densely populated country are detrimental to the community welfare, because the holding of such farms by a few condemns a large percentage of the population to a dependent condition. As the number of farms decreases, the number of salaried laborers must increase, and as this floating population increases, there is also a tendency for crime to increase, as the man who has no responsibilities as a proprietor of land often lacks the fundamental stimulus to make him observe the laws of his country. The landowner, having obtained even a small parcel of land, has an incentive for hard work, wishing to better his financial condition, while the dependent salaried man, with no visible stimulus for saving, tends to spend his money as fast as it is earned and seldom accumulates any property. To such an extent is the possession of land regarded as a benefit to the individual and an incentive toward good citizenship, that in some European countries the government has made arrangements to loan money to worthy young men for the purchase of small farms on the ground that the government gains a desirable citizen every time that it creates a landholder. The Government of Porto Rico might well take some steps to encourage dependent laborers to accumulate property, either by means of loans to those who desire to purchase property, or by opening up government land for settlement under the Homestead Act.

The rise in the price of land and the fact that the greater part of the land of Porto Rico is devoted to industries which are most productive when conducted on a fairly large scale, has tended to the accumulation of large tracts of land, and legal measures should be enacted against the accumulation of tracts of land of more than 100 or 200 acres, and providing for the distribution of any large tracts in case of the death of the present owner:

At the present time a good deal of the foodstuffs of Porto Rico is imported into the Island while if there were more widely extended division of the land into a large number of small farms, the production of these foodstuffs could be greatly increased, although, of course, this would tend to decrease the production of certain other crops which at present claim the chief attention of the people of Porto Rico.

According to the Report of the Governor of Porto Rico for 1914-15, the division of land among the various industries, as well as the average value per acre of land for each of the industries, is shown by the following table: