Agroecological Exploration in the Soto la Marina Region, Mexico

Abstract

HE Soto La Marina region lies on the east coast of Mexico in the state of Tamaulipas about I50 miles south of the MexicoUnited States boundary and a little less than that distance north of Tampico. The writer had an opportunity to study the agricultural possibilities of the region for two months from December 6, 1930, to February 5, 1931, as head of a party sent out by the American Slavic Colonization Trust to select places in it suitable for agricultural colonization by European emigrants. The investigation dealt mainly with the agroecological aspects of the region with the purpose of determining the specific crops that could be grown there profitably. The writer believes that the results have value not only because they represent the first study of the kind carried out in Mexico but also because they deal with a region that, by virtue of its accessibility to the markets of the United States, may be looked upon as a potential source for supplies of tropical and subtropical fruits and winter vegetables. It is hoped that this study of a small area may lead to more detailed and systematic studies of tropical and subtropical lands bordering on the Gulf of Mexico from Brownsville to Vera Cruz. The region examined is in the main a section of a plain rising gently westward from the coast until it merges into the great alluvial fans that spread eastward from the Sierra Madre. It is underlain by unconsolidated material, except that, beginning a short distance back from the coast, a calcareous formation, constituting the zone of carbonate accumulation universally present under the climatic conditions prevailing in the region, has become more or less indurated and forms a strong foundation underlying the upper layers of the soil. Rising above the plain to elevations of generally not more than 300 or 400 feet are a number of isolated remnants of a former higher surface. The Mesa de las Caldas, the eastern end of which extends into the area examined, is a large remnant of a flat-topped mesa. The Sierra de la Cocina, which rises to 500 feet in its highest part and extends southeastward from the eastern end of the Mesa de las Caldas a few kilometers from the Soto La Marina River, has lost its flat-topped mesa form through the thorough dissection to which it has been subjected. It now consists of a rolling to hilly belt underlain by consolidated