Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-09-09
FINE FRUIT FARMS
Opportunities That Porto Rico Offers
for Investments.
PROFITS ARE REASONABLY SURE
Florida Men Who Are Going in for
Orange Groves.
BANANAS AND COCOANUTS


MAYAGUEZ, Porto Rico, August 90 1899
Would you like to own an orange grove?
If so, come to Porto Rico. The rich.
golden fruit grows here without cultiya-
ton. Thera is no need of irrigation. as in
California, and as for Jack Frost his name
is unknown. There only 400 miles of
smooth water between San Juan and New
York, and in the near future there will be
lines of fruit steamers which will dump
your product into the best of our markets.
At present the oranges grow almost
wild. and you can buy the best at
less than l cent apiece. l am told that
they could be grown here in orchards so
that they could be sold at 81 a thousand
and give big profit, and fruit men say
they could be shipped to the United States
and sold there at II cents a dozen and still
pay the growers, the shippers and deal
ers.
Porto Rico promises to be Uncle Sans
choicest fruit garden. Barring hurricanes
such as that of last month which do not
come more than once iD a generation, we
have no land so well favored Oranges.
lemons and pineapples grow almost wild.
and with careful cultivation they can be
produced in great quantities 1t seems 10
me the best chance in Porto Rico for men
with small capital is in fruit growing. If
some of our small investors would form
syhdlcateS OF ten or a dozen each and
come down here and bay orange groves
they could soon build up an industry which
"ouId pay them enormous dividends. One
man could do but little, for enough fruit
would have to be raised in a locality to
furnish shiploads for the steamers. But in
combination settlements of this kind could
be made all over the island and a vast
business established
AT present the orange trees are scattered
1heS nave grown up where the seeds have
dropped and have been neither budded nor
cultivated. They are of MANY varieties
some being as full Of juice and as sweet as
any orange of Florida or California The
e erees are exceedingly thrifty. They grow
everywhere. but the best places are back
from the coast, on the foothills of the
mountains.
Florida Men in Porto Rico.
Inc frost of last year. which killed the
orange trees of Florida, has brought a num-
Der or men from that state to Porto Rico
1hey are now investigating the fruit con-
dltions here, and some of them are buy
ing land and planting out orchards One
man mas bought 800 acres not far from San
Juan. He expects to give up his planta-
ton in Florida and will begin Planting
oranges and pineapples this fall Mr.
Averill of Ogdensburg N. Y has bought
10 acres, which he expects to plant in
oranges and pineapples, and there is a
coIpHS Oi young Americans VINO are eStdD
fishing fruit farms on the east coast.
One of the best-posted fruit men | have
met here is Major S. S. Harvey of Pensa-
cola, Fla. Major Harvey is well known
among the horticultursts of the United
States. He has been at the head of some
of the leading horticultural societies of the
south and his pear orchard near Pensa-
cola Melted him more than $4,000 a year
for many years. He came to Porto Rico
as paymaster, but is thinking seriously
of going into orange growing a large
scale.
One of his plans is to establish a nursery
near CoamO, and there raise orange trees
to meet the orange-raising boom which
will probably be here within few years.
He has already bought the land for his
nursery and he thinks that he Will have
2U0.OO trees ready for sale within four
years from now. He takes the oranges as
they fall from the trees. buying them by
the tens Of thousands, and drops them just
as you drop potatoes, drilling them along
the rows and covering them up. The
oranges soon rot and the seeds sprout up.
Within three weeks they will be through
the ground. and when they are six inches
high they will be transplanted in rows, the
trees being six inches apart. After they
are a year old they will be budded from
the best Florida fruit. and the result Will
be tens of thousands Of the finest OF young
orange trees of best Florida varieties.
This Is the way trees are grown IN the
nurseries of Florida and the business is
exceedingly profitable. The trees are ready
80 fua sl - a. ~ et -, any 60, to- ca o w..
=, o.. ~ W. In 49, oar6ino 70 ,bni,
80 AVID sive oil ~ ray froro 81 RI 81,
as "'i ne ~ ~ ne -. D., Pic cor,es as
49, Ir.o. - o,4 - n;II he saan tba+
800, 10. .es ,J 20 st., a fnrtnna II is
ii'9 hai;a,.a W" fnr ~ nn,v ono started on
~ is1and 81 iai VIC o''i' wv
'he i'
Profits of Orange Growing.
T chatted with Major Harvey about orange
s,ro.,Ins in porto pico He tolls me that
III VI NV - - 80 -
good orange lands can be bought Tor from
$50 TO 800 per acre, and that a man can
make a fortune out of a hundred acres
Said he.
-
MINK that hunureo-dcfe grove should
pay man from 500 600 to So, 900 Il year at
the end of six years. He would have to