The jungle lands of Panama are elsewhere described, and where there is a jungle there are always rich land and abundant water, sometimes too much water and need of drainage. The Canal Zone is mainly jungle land, and where it has been cleared for cultivation excellent results are attained. The cost of clearing this jungle is not so great as would appear from the fact that for bananas and many other forms of crop the trees and brush are cut down and after a time burned, and no further effort is made to clear the land except about four cleanings per year with a machette. Anything like plowing is un-thought of for bananas and some other leading crops. Even sugar is often planted and left to shift for itself, under native methods, which are subject, of course, to improvement. [Illustration: DEAD TIMBER IN GATUN LAKE NOW COVERED WITH ORCHIDS] The third class of land in Panama is the level or rolling prairie land known as savanas or llanos. These lands lie for the most part in the valleys back of Bocas del Toro and along the southern, or Pacific, coast of the country. From Chame to Cape Mala a belt of level country sweeps around the Parita Bay. From ten to forty miles back of the coast rise the high mountains, and this fertile strip of country averages about thirty miles in width and is over a hundred miles long. Rolling country extends on west of this plain, but the plain itself contains enough good farming land to feed several millions of people. It is watered and drained by frequent rivers which cut across from the mountains to the sea every three or four miles and furnish every facility for cultivation. Most of this level country is first-grade soil and is adapted to the growing of almost any of the products of this tropical land. The general appearance of this open country suggests New Mexico or Southern California much more than any land below the tropic of Cancer. Its numerous towns and occasional good roads suggest a newly opened territory in the west, where there are abundant opportunities for growing up with the country. The newcomer is apt to be deceived into thinking that all things are now ready and all he has to do is to move in. In the extreme western part of Panama lies the great Chiriqui Province with its best-developed region in the entire Republic. Here are great cattle ranches, sugar fields, rice plantings, cotton farms, cornfields, and here are American companies working to develop modern civilized conditions. Here is the Chiriqui Railroad between Pedrogal and Boquette, with a branch running westward. More interest has centered in this region than in any other part of Panama, and if the proposed railroad from Panama to David is ever built, the whole southern slope of western Panama will suddenly appear on the map of the world's granaries.