Cacao and coffee are cultivated in the de partments of La Paz and Cochabamba, while other valuable vegetable products are produced in El Beni and Santa Cruz. Coca, from the leaves of which the alkaloid of cocaine is pro is one of the most valuable products of Bolivia. A large area of the republic is well suited to the cultivation of wheat, but this crop has been studied but little. The government has imported wheat of superior quality from the United States and Argentina for the pur pose of supplying a high grade of seed to home growers. Cattle, sheep and llamas are abun dant, and the government maintains a veterinary institute and agricultural school.
Nowhere else in Latin America has it been possible to till the soil profitably at such an alti tude as in Bolivia, where above the timber limit, at an altitude of 13,000 feet above the sea and over, barley, potatoes and peas are success fully grown; and yet, with all the labor that has been expended in the production of those crops, which are necessarily not of the best, the greater part of the food supply of these high regions must come from the lands below them as it has done for ages. The potatoes grown by the Indians on and above the timber line are dried and kept in this condition-for years, thus forming a staple article of food.
The eastern slopes of the Andes of eastern and southern Bolivia have great stretches of rolling land well adapted to grazing and agri culture, while in Santa Cruz and the other prov inces great prairie lands afford pasturage of excellent quality for vast herds of cattle yet to come into them; for the territory of Bolivia, after extending over many miles of the Andean Plateau from Lake Titicaca southward, drops down the eastern Cordilleras and spreads over the foothills into the very extensive tropical lowlands of the upper Amazon and river Plate country. So far are some of these lands from the centre of activity of the country that they have found an outlet for their crops through the neighboring countries rather than through Bolivia. It is the hope of the government that the new railway lines being built will bring a part, if not all, of this rich agricultural and mining region into touch with the life of the republic.
For some years past the alpaca wool in dustry, which has been receiving encouragement from the Bolivian government, has been growing steadily and promises to become one of the important industries of the country. Alpaca wool, the production of which is limited to.the Andean highlands of Peru and Bolivia, is adapted to the weaving of a great variety of materials, so the demand for it has become greater from year to year. This has led to an attempt on the part of the Bolivian government to improve the animals and to increase the out put of the wool, of which there was exported in 1915 more than $1,000,000 worth from Bolivia alone.
Previous to the outbreak of the European War a curious trade condition ex isted in Bolivia. For years Great Britain bought by far the greater part of Bolivian exports, especially rubber and tin, while at the same time Germany, through her thoroughly organized commercial system, sold more goods to Bolivia than did all other countries combined. But the advent of the war upset all the old con ditions and, eliminating Germany from the field and bringing the United States and neighboring Latin American nations into it with ever increasing intensity from year to year, changed the whole aspect and direction of Bolivia's trade and quickened it with a new life. Great Britain alone of the European nations kept a fair share of her old trade with Bolivia. During the first quarter of 1916 the foreign trade of Bolivia showed signs of a very considerable revival, the exports being $16,071,400 and the imports $3,203,400 (only two months for the port of Cobna), a total of $19,274,800, as against $11,522,464 for the same period in 1915. The duties collected during the first four months of 1916 were almost $1,000,000 more than for the corresponding period of 1915. In 1917 a commission was appointed to revise a revision of the Bolivian commercial code with a view to making it modern and suitable to the needs of the growing importance of the republic and its rapidly extending relationship with foreign na tions. The exports of Bolivia that found their way to Great Britain previous to the outbreak of the war amounted to over 80 per cent of the total exports; while at this same period only about % of 1 per cent of Bolivian exports went to the United States ($223,791 in 1913). The following year the United States' bill for exports from Bolivia was $981,000 and in 1915 it had reached $10,007,240 out of a total of $38,084,140, of which $36,094,446 was derived from minerals, the largest item of which was tin to the amount of 39,312 metric tons, of which 35,360 metric tons were sold to Great Britain, notwithstanding the war, while the United States took only 1,100 tons. In 1916, however, the United States took a much larger proportion of Bolivian tin and in 1917 about evenly divided this trade with Great Britain. The following table shows the principal Bolivian mineral exports in 1914 and 1915: 1915 1914 Metric Metric Minerals tons Value tons Value Antimony 13,085 84,216,050 186 811,909 Bismuth 568 1,071,125 437 924,649 Co 17,872 3,820,821 3,874 921,659Robber 5,486 4,521,032 4,485 3,221,063 Silver 77 1,092,647 72 984,686 Tin 39,312 .19,268,862 37,259 16,524,656 Wolfram 499 293,462 276 166,608 Bolivia's imports in cotton goods were valued in 1915 at about $1,000,000 a year. The growth of Bolivian trade shows an increase of over 300 per cent from 1905 to 1915.