The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1898-05-08

comes from the river but the irrigation is
carelessly done, and a great part Of 1t goes
to waste. There is rice field. This Is one
of the best paying crops of this part of
Peru, and there are large mills at Pacas-
mayo, where the rice is hulled, polished and
prepared for shipment.
We go through large estates devoted to
the raising of sugar. This is Peru's great
est crop. The most of the estates are
owned by foreigners, and some in the past
have paid very we'll The whole of the coast
valleys are adapted TO sugar raising and
the cane grows much more easily here than
in our States about the Gulf of Mexico. !
visited the. Lura Fico estate the other day.
This was managed and built up by Mr.. B.
II. Kaufman. 1t raid large dividends until
the fall in prices of some years ago, when
the heart was cut out of the sugar BUSH
ness. Many of the plantations changed
hands and Lura Fico is now owned by an
English syndicate which has tens of thou
sands of acres of sugar lands. The factory
of Lura Fico made five thousand tons of
sugar last year. and it will make more this.
The factory alone cost $500, 900, and the i'm
provements on the estate have footed UP
more than million. The most of the ma
and the machine shops and foundry are now
using steel plates which they import from
the United States. This is so notwithstand-
ing the fact that the owners are English.
The estate uses steam plows. harrows and
culitvators. and L noticed that the pillow
points were made at Hartford. The cane is
hauled from the fields to the factories by
steam engines over portable railroad. and
all sorts of modern economical machinery
is employed. There are now over sixty sugar
factories on the coast region of Peru, and
in the neighborhood OF $200000O0 is invested
in the business. The amount produced is
about 165 100000 pounds a year. The labor
is the native Peruvian Indian, who receives
from 80 to 50 cents in silver day, or from
25 to 40 cents of our money.
AMONG THE Poems
l wonder how an American tenant would
look if he were offered a place on one of
these Peruvian farms. 1 refer more espe-
cially to those on the smaller estates.
went into one of the houses on a planta-
tion near here to-day. 1t is a sample of
thousands all through Peru. The hut was
| made of canes, and you could see out
through the cracks on all sides. The floor
was of dirt and the roof of reeds, being
only needed to keep out the sun. There was
in the house but one room, about eighteen
feet square. In one corner wooden plat
form about as high as your knees furnished
the sleeping place for the heads of the fam
lily; the children slept on the floor. In an
other corner was the family cook stove, two
stones placed just wide enough apart to
| allow an earthen cooking pot to rest on
them. There were no windows, no chimneys,
and, with the exception of soap box, no
| furniture. In this house a family of six
| live, and 1 doubt not deem themselves
happy. Their chickens and goats live with
them, and all they want is enough to eat
| and drink and a chance to get drunk now
and then. These people seem to have no
| ambition whatever. They work hard and
are perfectly satisfied. Their employers fur
| nish them, in addition to their wages, one
| pound of meat and two pounds of rice daily
| and they allow them to run up such bills
| at the store on the estates as keeps them
! always in debt to their masters. Our farm
| ers could not work on such rations as these
men have. They take upon rising a glass
OF pisco, or native whisky, and go to work
without breakfast. This is at about o'clock
| in the morning. This whisky serves them
until II a M, when they knock off for
| lunch, or for what is here called breakfast
1
| goat meat and rice. AT o'clock
they go back to work, and at 5
| stop for the day. When they get home they
| have another stew of meat and rice and
| perhaps piece or so Of bread. After din
| ner they sit about and talk, and at 8 or 8
| O'Clock lie down in the clothes which they
| have worn all day and go to sleep. They
have no education, and not one in a hundred
| of them can read. Their dress costs them
| almost nothing. That of the men is made
/ up of a pair of cotton trousers, a cotton
| shirt, pair of leather sandals and straw
| hat. The women wear cotton dresses and
| straw hats, and, in addition, have sblack
wooden shawls for feast days and Sundays
The men also have what are known as
ponchos. These are the overcoats of South
America. They are merely blankets with a
short slit in the middle large enough to slip
the head through. They are worn by the
better classes, as we'll as the poor and are
costly or otherwise. according to the purse
of the owner.
The fine farm machinery which I have
written Of as being used here is, of course
to be found only on the large estates The
native Peruvians do their work in the
crudest ways. Oxen with pIows of wood
tipped with iron serve as the motive
power, and the Indian holds the pillow with
one hand and drives with a goad, as the
Palestine farmers did in the days of the
Scriptures. FRANK G. CARPENTER,
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