A Mexican country house, or _hacienda_, is often a picturesque and interesting habitation. It is not, however--like such residences in England--only a dwelling-place and home, but is at the same time a centre of industry. Surrounding it are great plantations of sugar-cane, cotton, _maguey_, or other agricultural products which the particular region may afford, and the great outbuildings comprise the warehouses, machinery sheds, and indeed the whole plant for the treatment of the product, whilst, near at hand, are the numerous huts of the _peones_, or agricultural labourers, to whose work the cultivation of the estate is due. The house itself is often of quaint aspect, and of some architectural pretension; Moorish-looking arches and cornices, and turrets and columns, balconies and verandas, generally of solid masonry in the wealthy _haciendas_, are set there to defy all time. Indeed, many of these have already resisted the ravages of centuries, and the great thickness of the walls arrests the traveller's attention. The roofs--flat in some cases--are generally covered with red pan-tiles dug and baked near at hand. Perhaps a small chapel adjoins; aqueducts and stone channels convey a sparkling stream of water from the canal communicating with the distant river, and a profuse garden surrounds the whole. In this great garden are all Mexico's tropical fruits--pomegranates, oranges, limes, _chirimoyas_, _ahuacates_, figs, grapes, and a host of others, and you may wander beneath their grateful shade and take your fill. Above them, perhaps the tall, slender columns, and graceful, feathery foliage of the cocoanut palms rear. And over all is the blue dome of the Mexican sky. It is a peaceful scene, not without something of allurement. The interior _menage_ is more primitive than that of European houses, and often presents a singular whole in its abundance and crudeness combined. But hospitality ever reigns there, and the foreigner is always welcome. The production at present of Mexico's staple articles of agricultural nature is as follows:-- _Cotton_.--Before the time of the Aztecs cotton was cultivated in Mexico, and cotton-spinning carried out. The quilted cotton armour of the natives excited the attention of the Conquistadores, and they even adopted it themselves. Mexico has lands of cotton-producing adaptability, it is stated, greater than the United States; nevertheless she imports cotton therefrom in considerable quantities. The consumption of raw cotton in the country is estimated at more than 100,000 bales annually, of which half is produced in the country, principally upon the Nazas, the yearly value of whose crop amounts to some two millions sterling. Other states, however, also produce cotton, or are capable of large production. The total value for the recent annual production is given at about 3,400,000 pounds sterling.