The chief products of Porto Rico, outside of lumber, may be said to be sugar, coffee, tobacco, rice, honey and wax, and these have greatly enriched the island, making many of the people well-to-do. Sugarcane is cultivated on the fertile plains, yielding three hogsheads on an average per acre without any manure. An excellent grade of coffee is produced, and it does not appear that as yet any blight has perceptibly affected the shrubs. Rice is very commonly cultivated on the hills in the Sierra. It must be a kind of mountain variety, as no inundation or other kind of watering is used. Rice and plaintain are in fact the staple food of the natives. Cotton and maize are also raised to a certain extent. There should in the future be an industry from the manufacture of tannin extracts from the bark of Coccolala, Rhizophora and the pods of various acacias, the latter of which are a great nuisance on account of their rapid growth. There are a long number of fruits on the island, such as cherries, guava plums, juicy mangoes and bell apples. Edwin Emerson, Jr., a war correspondent, speaks of some of the fruits as follows: "The most astonishing and the best of all was a fruit called pulmo--in our language, sour-sap. It is about as large as a quart bowl, and so nourishing and full that a single fruit was enough for a good meal, although that did not deter my horse from eating four. Later I found that they are also relished by dogs. Of springs and streams there were so many that I had no fear of dying of thirst. If water was not handy, I could always climb a cocoanut tree and throw down the green nuts, which were filled with an abundance of watery milk, more than I could drink at one time. Other nuts there were in plenty; but many were more curious than edible, even to my willing appetite. One had a delicious odor. I tasted a little, and thought it ideal for flavoring candy. But it soon dissolved in my mouth in a fine dust, absorbing all the moisture, so that I had to blow it out like flour. Nothing ever made me so thirsty in my life, and even after rinsing out my mouth I felt for a long time as if I were chewing punk or cotton. The fruit of the tamarind only added to my torments by setting all my teeth on edge. When we reached the next spring I fell off my horse for fear he would get all the water. Only after I had satisfied my thirst would I let him drink." The poverty of the fauna and flora is remarkable, there being scarcely any wild animals, birds or flowers. There is a great deficiency of what may be called _native_ animals of any sort.