ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on changes in the Alajuelan countryside from early to mid–twentieth century, as land scarcity became acute in the Northwest and as the agricultural frontiers beyond the Central Valley received a growing influx of emigrants from the region. Despite the fact that immigrants continued to arrive from Heredia and other densely settled areas, and that many emigrants from the Alajuela city to San Ramón area remained within the province, Alajuela is in 1927 the province with the highest negative net migration, in absolute terms. The same small- to medium-sized farms, aside from an even larger number which hired no day–laborers at all or did so only at harvest time. The movables were probably distributed directly among heirs or disposed of out of court, perhaps to pay unlisted creditors. The mortgages were especially high, so that the actual value of immovable assets per case may not have been much higher than elsewhere in the Central Valley.