Sugar cane was brought to Mexico by the Spanish conquistadors. Prescott, in his “Conquest of Mexico,”[72] says that the sugar cane was transplanted from the neighboring islands to the lower level of the country, and that, together with indigo, cotton and cochineal, it formed a more desirable staple for the colony than its precious metals. He also states that it was Hernan Cortés himself who introduced the cane from Cuba. This famous soldier established the Atlacomulco plantation, which lies an easy hour’s ride distant from Cuernavaca in the state of Morelos, and there, in 1520, a hundred years before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers at Plymouth, he erected the first sugar mill in Mexico. This mill is owned by the descendants of Cortés and is still in operation. Thirty years later sugar was shipped from Mexico to Peru and Spain, and the production of the commodity was maintained steadily until 1791. In that year all the cane-growing countries of western America received a stimulus from the wholesale destruction of the plantations and mills of Santo Domingo. In Mexico natural conditions are very favorable to sugar culture, but the growth of the industry has been retarded by the primitive methods in vogue, the inadequacy of transportation facilities and political disturbances. In the seaboard states the sugar plantations are found chiefly in the rich lowlands bordering on the Pacific ocean and the Gulf of Mexico. In the Gulf states the rainfall is ample to insure good crops. The largest sugar producer, however, is the inland state of Morelos, and there, as well as on the west coast, irrigation is necessary. The higher levels do not give such good crops as the lowlands; on the latter the yield is between forty and sixty tons to the acre, and on the former it runs between twenty-five and forty-five tons to the acre. Sugar beets have been grown on the plateau with marked success. In the low, tropical regions seven or eight crops of ratoons can be raised, but on the higher lands replanting must be done every two or three years. The best-known plantations are situated on large estates that have been owned by the same families for many generations. For instance, in Morelos, where about sixty per cent of Mexico’s crop is produced, the estates are owned by non-resident families and, as a rule, managed by Spaniards. Labor is cheap and abundant, the cane is rich in juice and the sugar content is high, but the extraction in the small, crude mills is poor, the recovery of sugar, as a rule, not exceeding six per cent of the weight of the cane. There are a few large factories in Mexico where the methods and results should be more closely in accordance with modern practice. The nineteenth century saw the industry maintained on a fairly even basis, but about 1900 an improvement was noted, as the following table will show: