1884 9,927 3,227 1885 16,271 4,084 1886 5,776 2,223 1887 10,906 4,708 1888 18,410 3,576 1889 28,830 12,386 ------ ------- Total 90,120 30,204 Excellent cacao was grown during Spanish colonial days around Matina, but none is exported now. With respect to wheat, up to 1860 there was sufficient for the consumption of the country. It was so intelligently cultivated that the finer grades were produced. The rise in the price of coffee and the competition with the flour of the United States and Chile drove out the native wheat almost entirely, and to-day the cultivation of this grain is badly neglected. To-day the only flour-mill in this country grinds imported wheat. Tobacco was a monopoly for many years, and only recently has the culture been taken up by the people. Other important agricultural products are rice, beans, corn and potatoes. The cultivation of rice in Costa Rica demands very little care and no irrigation to produce two crops a year of a very superior quality. Beans and corn are successfully grown everywhere in the country, while the raising of potatoes is almost wholly confined to the hillsides of Cartago and Alajuela, where they acquire an extremely fine quality. According to the census of 1892, the average annual production of these crops for that and the two preceding years was in liters as follows: ----------+-----------+----------+----------+----------- | Corn. | Beans. | Rice. | Potatoes. ----------+-----------+----------+----------+----------- San José | 8,394,527| 1,842,527| 236,543| 7,915 Alajuela | 6,898,549| 999,652| 867,528| .. Cartago | 7,874,642| 1,724,628| .. | 1,745,725 Heredia | 2,949,692| 132,842| .. | .. Guanacaste| 1,862,598| 92,321| 121,342| .. Puntarenas| 392,721| 21,325| 132,845| .. Limon | 18,525| 2,822| .. | .. ----------+-----------+----------+----------+----------- Total | 28,391,254| 4,816,117| 1,358,258| 1,753,640 ----------+-----------+----------+----------+----------- Important agricultural districts are, besides the Central Highlands about one hundred and fifty kilometers in length by sixty kilometers in width, the great valleys of Talamanca, Santa Clara, Tortuguero, San Carlos and Rio Frio. Along the Pacific the great valley of Térraba and the plains of Golfo Dulce and Guanacaste are fertile regions, which, if properly tilled, would offer advantages equal to the Central Highlands, where nearly the entire population of Costa Rica is concentrated.