About half this volume deals with the cattle and livestock industry, particularly with animal feeding and nutrition; pasture growing and experimentation; marketing; and dairying and cheese making. One article deals with the agricultural economics of Costa Rica. Other chapters treat land use problems; land tenure and size of farm; potato marketing and production; coffee nutrition; plant and soil analyses; Mediterranean fruit fly control; and plant virus diseases.
While the writer has no training in these particular subjects, he does have a few reservations on the techniques used or neglected. A number of the articles contain no bibliography, while references used in others do not seem exhaustive. Eight of the authors spent only three months or less in Costa Rica. A number of the papers leave one with the impression that they were written without sufficient homework on previous technical studies as well as on the general social environment in which the recommendations were to be carried out. Although the United Fruit Company is to be commended for financing the publication (it did not finance the studies), it is unfortunate that the full page eulogy of the Company which appears in the frontispiece may make this volume suspect to the many Costa Ricans who by no means share this enthusiasm.
The book has an attractive format and is well illustrated. It remains, however, a compilation of technical articles likely to interest very few historians and other social scientists. The writer would, therefore, recommend the volume only for those interested in Costa Rican data on the cattle and farming problems treated.
