vestors that Mexico offered unusual opportunities for profit in the production of coffee, of cattle by improving the grades and producing forage crops for feed and, later, by the production of rubber which had become, by the invention of the auto vehicle, of such great importance in the economic life of the world.
It was also discovered that large tracts of arid land could be made wonderfully productive by irrigation in a comprehensive way involving the investment of large sums of money. Within the last thirty years considerable sums have been invested in land in the tropic regions which was unproductive jungle until put by foreign purchasers to profitable use in the production of coffee and rubber. Foreigners have also invested in large areas of ranch lands which have in every instance been purchased, most often from private owners, but, in rare instances, from the government at prices fixed by law. These properties, by the application of modern methods of management, were made much more valuable than they would ever have been in the possession of their original Latin-Mexican owners.
There have been also established by Americans a number of agricultural colonies where the lands were divided into small holdings which were occupied by American families and were cultivated under the methods, and with the improved ma-
