the price that the owner puts upon it, which is $50,000. As cattle raising is the principal and the most promising industry of the Province, it may be well to give some details of the Divala ranch, which is representative of well-kept property of the kind. There are fewer than half a dozen cattle ranches of similar proportions in the entire territory of the Republic and their aggregate stock is less than ten thousand head. If the figures were ten times as great they would not represent a quantity sufficient to supply the existing demand. A number of factors combine to make the prospect for the cattle raiser in Chiriqui particularly bright. Epidemic diseases are unknown. Pleuro-pneumonia and anthrax have never been heard of. Black-leg once made its appearance but was readily combatted by vaccination. The number of lean cattle is much greater than that of the potrero fed animals. Many natives keep small herds on the commons, which will support them during the rainy months. These cattle can be bought at eighteen and twenty dollars a head, gold, on the range, and after six or eight months' fattening in the potrero they sell at from thirty to thirty-five dollars in David. At Divala, about fifteen hundred acres are in fattening pastures. In the States, three acres, at least, are considered necessary to support a steer; here one acre per head is sufficient for fattening. Mr. Wilson stated: "As to the cost of feeding cattle, I can tell from a careful record kept by me, that it is nine cents per head per month, including cattle large and small, as well as horses and oxen. The amount includes the yearly cleaning of pastures, repairing fences, salt, tar, and acid, wages of cowboy and helper." The natural increase of cattle in Chiriqui is thirty per cent per year. The cost of making potreros, including planting, fencing, etc., is less than six dollars per acre and this might be considerably reduced by the employment of machinery in the work. From these and the foregoing facts it is easy to calculate that cattle raising in Chiriqui is an extremely profitable business. At Boquete, situated in a mountain gap, at an altitude of about eleven hundred meters above sea level, is a colony of Americans, Britishers, French, and Germans. They are chiefly |