Morning journal and courier., 1888-03-17

IN OTH FER LAMBS.
A Fertile Cuban ctIve- ness and Prosperity-Sugar Raising Scenes on a Sugar Plantation-The old and the New.

SAASS DSSOAAS VA the valley of Guines, the richest and most beautiful of all the worlds valleys. Here are the mountains that lay like an impene- trable wall between this wonderful garden and the North, forever barring out all chill ing winds, and giving thousand lazy mon~ tercs vine clad homes adown their blooming sides, fairer than the peasants home-nests in another bold range bathed in blue mists, ly- ing there like an eternal dream, half hiding another thousand menteros' homes, cascades, villas and mountain chapels, white as the face of a saint against the cowling of peren- nial verdure. Far to the west another range. through which refreshing streams come leaps ing down to the shining valley. Far to the east still other mountains, over which the sun rises in royal splendor; and winding with stately grace comes the broad river, Santa Catalina, gleaming like a great bed of silver and pushing the crooning wheels of an hundred diminutive ancient mills. The quaint old church of this Moorish town is called San Julien de los Guines, CT Saint Julien of the Reeds-Guines being named 1Ioh SulA0S, lilO 4CCeio, "AAOh SAS" e"ACAi6 sAAO banks of Santa Catalina in the days of Co., lumbus and Veiasquez
 THE VALLEY OF GUINES.
 Guines aeems a thousand years old. Yet it has the fair, bright ways of perennial youth. It is the only place in Cuba where l have not found shriveled old age, woful laz- zaroni and importunate though contented # olo ov,1 ae feet. The outreaching tentaeles of the Spanish government devil-fsh have yet to suck substance and leave ruin here. 1t is the only spot in this island-paradise where the heart of a man who is not altogether brute will not ache for the curse Of Spain and the dolor of the Cuban people. But think of the marvellous productiveness Of this wonderful valley of Guines as it is, and what it might be in tke hands of people who have wrung from the comparatively un willing soil of our own Mohawk and Cum berland valleys such noble prosperity and store. The entire valley has area equiva. lent to forty miles square; is susceptible ot easy irrigation; yields ceaselessly to constant cultivation; produces three crops of corn and all vegetables annually; while the aver, age depth of this, the richest soil on the earth, is upwards of thirty-six feet!
 The tourist who "visits' Cuba, sits under the great porches of Gran Hotel Pasaje guar reling with beggars and coachpen during the three lay-days of steamer, and mayb' sees Colon cemetery, the governor-general, quinta, full fight and possibly two penny
 
 hills, feels sure he has seen Cuba. But h. knows nothing of the island and it's. marvel ous possibilities in the hands of good govern ment and earnest citizens until the heart o the island and it's actual resources are seel and comprehended. The great plantation | in this valley alone, like Fl Bilboa, Alejan | dria and Amistad, are simply astounding i their areas, equipment, forces of laborers an l annual yield. Some of them would cove | three or four American townships in ares l indeed half of many of our counties; an the populations of each would frequentl | suffice for incorporating American "city. | SUGAR RAISING IN CUBA.
 Though natural conditions should mak | this island, with Louisiana, the sugar-hous of the whole world, there is no profit in Gu ban sugar raising to-day. "Cuba es Ia vac 1 de Espana. Pero hace tienpo que Ia vaca n l la leche'-"Cuba is Spain's COW. But sh
 
 | saying, grown out of a governmental pillag | so long, so comprehensive and merciless tha | any other people would have gone mad be meath it. Half of the vast estates have bee robbed by Spanish taxation here until worth 1 less, then confiscated, then sold for pii | tance to plundering Spaniards in league wit the taxing powers, and these Spaniards i turn are now, in common with Cubans wh have so far survived, being ruined by th final, fiercest pillagings by the very powe which made their own villainy possible.
 The great combinations and trusts in GU own country are gradually forcing down th l price to the producer, while constantly 1T l creasing it to the American consumers, b 1 downward and upward movements of frat tions of one cent per pound, every one C | which means trust profit of millions c dollars The government planters taxe are enornous. Merchants are ehary C 1 making advances under liability of goverr ment seizure for those taxes. Labor is con stant1y higher, though gold is constant dearer. It costs more for an arroba of tasss l jo or ierked beef with which to feed hand than the planter gets for an arreba of sugs produced by that labor. And only becaus the planter has from half million to mi lion dollars already sunk in land and ms l chinery can he struggle on and squeeze ot l another and another crop-praying, as hart | ly another human can, that by some prov l UGuC0 OL dOO Iu0 uoAb tu0 GAOSS O4 D George or the stars and stripes may float ove ! him. Over ninety per cent. of all Cuban st gar is consumed by the United States. CuE | is now ours commercially speaking. We al a nation of towards that she is not oul l wholly.
 Two leagues over 8 private road built b the planters to connect with the Guines ca zada brought me to the great sugar plantf tion, Fl Bilboa, the estate of Don Manu Calvo, consignee of the Spanish Royal Ma steamship line, which adjoins the equall noted coffee plantation of Sonora Mereedit
 and named Fl Mercedite in the fair owner honor. I shall not attempt description these particular estates, or coffee culture an sugar raising and manufacture. Those thing are all get down in the books. I only hoI
 to give briefly the glimpses and impression of things that come to any traveller in Cut
 with eyes and ears about him. Though st gar planting was begun ill Cuba just tw
 hundred and ninety-two years age, it is on.
 within 8 few years that the great improv
 ments which have made the industry poss
 ble on so gigantic scale have been intr' duced. The old "bull mill, D turned by oxe
 as in the southern States before the war, l by no means forgotten, and the "Jamal'
 train" method of grinding, boiling and gral
 ulating are still more recent On some
 the smaller estates these are still in use. B1
 on all the great plantations tremendous e
 zines and machinery are now in operation | and on many, like that of El Bilbea, whe
 by the Dsronse system, the complete man
 facture of all grades of sugar from the "a cane is effected, the plant has cost two hu
 dred and fifty thousand dollars, the annu
 outlay being also fully that sum for lab and other expenses. Great ado is made
 the States where ''farmer kings" as in Oak , ta, use one hundred reapers in the harve | field and muster five hundred hands. He
 fifteen hundred to two thousand hands a
 required in the labor upon the large sug plantations.
 As with sugar, the greatest impetus to co
 fee raising has been comparatively recer and while coffee bears no important part the export showing of the island, it is st } considerable of an industry, owing its orig here to the revolution in San Domingo, whi
 forced thousands of refugees, expert coff , growers, to the eastern and southern parts Cuba. The cultivation of the coffee pla 3 was thus begun on large scale, but the ra , ages of war during the late Cuban insure , tions nearly exterminated the industry.
 APPEARANCE OF SUGAR PLANTATION. A sugar plantation comprising thousan = 1 upon thousands of acres of cane gleami