Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1898-05-07

little game became known. the rebels
attacked 1t with SPECIAL fury and des-
troyed upwards OF four million pounds
of tobacco in a few months. 1t will
take twenty years for this famous re-
gion to become as fiourishng as 1t was
in January of 1896. But the incompar-
able soil, climate and natural condl-
tons remain, unimpaired by wars
wild alarums;" and those who come in
with little money when peace is re-
stored. may buy the best tobacco lands
very cheaply and become Croesuses in
due course.
Among the refugees at Key West /
met an ex-sugar planter. who was
anxious to sell his estate: and for a
Cuban he seemed to have developed re-
markable adaptation to the ways of the
trading Yankees" His method was
to edge up to every group Of men
he saw talking together and Join in the
conversation. Presently he would be
heard to say, "the soil of Cuba is too
rich; that's what's the matter with the
island" then he would go on relating
what ruinously large crops he had
himself been raising-so remarkably
large that they had invited destruction
by envious rebels and Spaniards; and
invariably ended by inquiring who
wanted to buy 10000 acres of the finest
sugar land in Cuba, worth $4,000 the
acre, for 80 cents the acre. To be sure
MS plbnldtlOn, mouse ana nlllls are IN
ruins, but he pointed out what profit
could be made on the same in the line
of scrap-lron and old bricks. Up to
date he has not found a purchaser. !
heard one man tell him that he would
rather have three measley acres of
corn and potatoes in Ohio. Pennsyl-
vania or Illinois, than the whole 10000
of 'Cuba's best under present condi-
TONS"
Somebody will no doubt be making
money out of Cuba's ruined homes and
mills within the next few months
The boilers and machinery and other
junk of thousands of destroyed plan
tations can be had for almost nothing:
but the market for scrap iron must be
outside of the island. The brick and
mortar would hardly be worth buying,
but might be used on the spot in re-
building. Now, grasses and wild vines.
growing over the melancholy heaps,
have softened their harsh outlines and
made them a picturesque feature of the
Landscapes; but they are not to be con-
sidered as an element toward building
up the resources Of rural Cuba. In
spite of the war, several syndicates,
with an eye to the future, have lately
purchaser 'arge tracts of land. Last
winter a company of New Englanders
bought eight thousand acres in the
beautiful Trinidad valley. near SANTA
go. They are not doing anything with
for years and then realize heavy Inter
est on the money invested.
As to business enterprises on
smaller scale, they are innumerable
for men with little money. and more
energy. A few acres In market gar
dening, with their continuous crops
from one years end to another, would
perhaps yield the quickest and largest
returns for the smallest amount of cap
ital. Chicken raising too, has always
been n strangely neglected Industry in
Cuba. Fowls and eggs figure conspicu-
ously every day in the Spanish-Amer-
lean menu: but nobody on the Island
has ever gone into the business of sup
plying the demand on u large scale.
with incubators and brooders. as in the
United States
All winter, before the present Siege
began. eggs sold in Havana at dollar
the dozen, and poultry fifty cents the
pound; and what 1t is now, goodness
knows, with beef, at the last advices
" pound. A man with eyes In his
head and the business instinct Of the
average American will see avenues for
profitable Investments of money and
labor in every direction. soon as
peace Is restored in the island
1t seems a pity to take advantage
of the peoples mlsfortunes, but
many are the fine old cassa in Havana
and other cities which will be bought
Tor song. These stately palaces of
impoverished grandeur with their mar
BILE floors and pillared corridors. and
inner court yards, their fountains and
palm trees, are fairly begging for pur-
chasers, owing to the financial distress
of their owners.
II goes particularly hard with the
proud hidalagos TO have to sell their
property to the hated Yankees. who
are looked upon as horde of greedy
shop-keepers. As II any nation under
the sun could be more greedy for gain
than Spain has shown herself since the
earliest days Of the Conquest Every