The daily morning journal and courier. [volume] (New Haven, Conn.) 1894-1907, 1899-08-21
WEALTH IN CUBA.

Grower-A Single Bunch OF the Gold
en- Fruit Contains 1877 Bananas and
Weighs $50 Pounds.
Especial Correspondence Of the Journal
ana Courier.)
Trinidad de Cuba, July 21.-Though
many thousands Of our countrymen
have visited Cuba with speculative in
tent during the last year, fewer than
five hundred Of them to-day own dol
lars worth of property on the island.
This is the more remarkable when
| Englishmen are buying up property
right and left. Is it because the sons OF
Britain are less cautious than their
western cousins, or are they slorewder
business men? You may meet them
eyerywhere-in town ana country, III
the highways of travel and the byways
of the interior, riding about on their po-
mes, getting options on sugar-lands,
Understands. mining lands, broken
| down plantations, city mansions, build
ing Sites anything en- which the most
| eanguine imagination can conceive OF a
penny gained. They operate with their
| customary quiet persstency, talking lit
| tie, but making grist of oil that comes
| to the mill A huge deal was recently
| completed by one of these silent agents,
whereby London syndicate be came
the owners of nearly two million acres
in the central portion CT the island. 1t
is said that the Englishmen purpose
trying some novel experiments on @ part
of their land in the line of tea-culture,
celery, berries, etc.
BY the way, we have always heard
that berries will not thrive in Cuban
erroneous statement easily disproved.
The trouble with berries in Cuba is that
they grow so big in this generous soil as
not to be recognized by their nearest
northern NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. for ex-
ample, swelling to the size Of plums and
currents as large as cherries. Right
here is hint to women, for whom there
seems to be few openings in our new
possessions. 1t Is we'll known that the
current crop has been practically fail
IRE in the United States for several
years, owing to something which de-
stroys the bushes, and that all-current
jelly. such as used to be the housewives
pride. In universal demand for cakes
game and other culinary purposes, has
become a thing of the past, it's place
being poorly filed by factory product
compounded largely of gelatine Why
not plant few Cuban acres with cur
rent-bushes and convert the fruit into
such jelly as our grandmothers made,
nodded in glasses, which would find
ready sale? In the beautiful long ago,
at home in the country, when mother
and sisters and aunts all Joined in the
annual jelly-making, we used to calcu-
11tA thar tho hatch nf rl,bIy
which would stand alone when released |
from the molds, cost about two cents
the glass buying sugar at retail; and |
as there is an endless demand for 1t, at |
twenty cents the glass and upward, the
profit is not uncertain.
In this province Of Santa Clara, which
by all authorities Is conceded to- be the
richest IN Cuba, the price of land va
ries from thirty cents the acre to three
hundred dollars,--the latter the cream
of the sugar-lands the former mostly
and good for little but pas
turage. Tn some places well cleared
land near market towns can be bought
as low as three dollars the acre; but as
a rule, this is only in cases where once
wealthy planters find themselves with
out cash, owing to hard times brought
On by the war and are compelled to part
with some of their ancestral acres in
order to start anew In cane or tobacco
growing. It Is for these golden oppor-
tunities that the shrewd Englishmen
aforesaid are looking, and few escape
heir eyes
One drawback to investment in Cuba
s the uncertainty of titles and the alb
70 b1,+ In NO |
1otaries. According to the old Spanish
avs, which are yet in vogue to a great
'Xtent, the notaries keep all records of
and titles, and from their decisions
here is no appeal The office has de-
cended from father to son through d,
nanp generations, and having had ,
hings so long their own way, the in -,
,unbents have grown exceedingly AFRO !,
CANT and demand outrageous fees ,
Three hundred dollars is not considered =,
IN exorbitant charge for the copy of
Iced. Not long ago three thousand dol :
ars was actually paid in Havana for :,
ecordlng a deed! Fifteen hundred or =.
thousand dollars is the common charge
or recording a will.
AS everybody knows, 1t requires :
or q wealthy syndicate, to
% much in Sugar-cane, because very q
arge tract of land is necessary. besides ;,
fortune in machinery, buildings, plan q
alton railway, cattel, etc. Coffee does >
OF grow everywhere, and neither does q
obacco. Setting aside these two great q
tapleS OF Cuba, what could a man Tor 2
,oman) of moderate means engage in !,
18th fair prospects of success? First -
nd foremost Is truck farming, because
18th single acre of this Incompatible
oil and the possibility of two or three
rops year, man may support
amily; and with ten acres judicously
in favorable locality, he may
apidly acquire competence. At pres
Mt almost no vegetables are raised in 7
uba except the native sweet potato,
lie people depending for their supplies
hiefly on canned goods and a few
cas- tomatoes, etc, brought from Flor )
la. The Cubans have only lately
armed to care for turnips, beets and -
her Of our common northern vegeta- r
es, and are willing to pay good prices
n them; and there are now enough
mericans on the island to consume the
'oducts of all the truck farms that are
ya1,y to Ia arto ,1iSbo1 I,ara f1,, 80 I ~