"This subject is of tremendous importance. The soil and climate of Porto Rico are such that it should be able, even with its dense population, to produce most of its food. There are unused plots of ground around practically every hut in the interior of the Island. The decrease in the production of sugar is going to throw many laborers out of work and they will be obliged to raise most of their own food or suffer. Many reasons have been advanced to explain the absence of good small gardens. The laborers themselves say that they do not plant and cultivate gardens because they do not own the land and they are allowed to plant only on condition that they give the greater part of their produce to the landowners. They claim also that it does not pay to break up the ground for one crop and that after they have got plantains, etc., growing they may be obliged to move. It is also true that in most cases they have not money enough to buy the seed or hire the oxen and implements needed for breaking up the ground. "Also, in some parts of the south coast, it is too dry for profitable gardening. On the other hand, landowners frequently say that the reasons why laborers in the rural sections do not plant gardens are lack of knowledge of gardening methods, lack of realization of the benefits that they could derive from good gardens, and custom. Without discussing the relative merits of these reasons, there are two things that must be faced--such laborers must be educated, so far as possible by example, and they must be offered the opportunity to hold land with some fixity of tenure, either by purchasing it on the installment plan or by obtaining leases from the present landowners." WOMAN AND CHILD LABOR FORTUNATELY, the factory system has not been introduced to any great extent into Porto Rico, nor in all probability will woman and child labor in factory employment ever constitute a serious problem. The census of 1910 gives only a total of 1912 woman wage earners in various industries of the Island. This, of course, does not include the woman who works throughout the rural districts, and whose condition constitutes the problem which must be studied and remedied in the Island.