The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-10-28
S|SAL HEMP IS MAKING
MILLIONS FOR yUCATAN

I happicst home Of the workingman II
a planter has three hundred laborcrs
he viii not only provide them will,
homes adjacent 90 his hacienda but h.
will provide a doctor. prizes, n church
clothes. food. tools garden seeds. import
ed delicacies and liquors. lie will give
his people holiday three day out OF
the week IN order to get them 10 work
the other four. and on one OF the planta-
ions | visited. owned bv the famous
Escalante family. beautiful little stone
houses were arranged for each family
and every house had a five foot
square tiled bath with running water
from an artesian we'll The Maya and
mestiza love their daily bath and clean
clothes after work
When it is desired to plant field of
henequin stretch Of the bush grown
country is selected. MAYA laborers cut
off the brush, burn it, scatter the heaps
of stone and then insert cuts from
henequin plants in a handful of soil
between two rocks. Five years later the
planter can begin cutting off big, fbrous
leaves, some OF them worth a Mexican
dollar each almost. and his plant pro-
duces till it is well along toward thirty
years old, all the attention it has needed
in the meantime being a little hoeing
once year. Some planters do not even
do that
PREPARING THE LEAVES.
The leaves when cut off are carried to
the ends of the rows of plants and laid
on little cars, which are pulled by mules
along miniature railway tracks to the
hacienda or plantation headquarters,
where the planters home, the cleaning
mills, the church and village for the
laborerS are clustered. Sometimes the
field is three miles from the cleaning
mill.
The leaves having been trimmed OF
the thorns along the side and having
butts and tips chopped off with hooked
knife, are fed to a machine which carries
them over drum with sharp knives
that strip out the soft feshy pulp from
the tibres, taking first one and then the
other, and then deposting the leaf in
the form OF long hank OF fibre at the
other end n Maya takes it off and
lays it on a pole, which is carried out
it is baled and hauled on little tramcars
sometimes f'teen or twenty miles to
a railroad. Most plantations are able to
deliver their hemp at Pregreso for two
cents pound or less, so that when
hemp is selling at ten cents a pound
they are NAL ing 400 per cent a year.
OF the wealth of the country no fa;r
estimate can be given, for few of the
planters know how much norey they
have Not many of them are even Of
any educa, ion or worldly experience and
their business methods are very funny.
| could name one of the largest houses
in Merida which has not struck a bal
ance one its books in four years. the
head OF the house knew that at that time
he had 100000 Mexican N his 81 fe,
and since lhe1 he has taken out over
6o,ooo,ooo, and he told me what was
left was a bigger pile than he had taken
out, so that he knew he was ALRIGHT
He does not expect TO worry 2bout such
things as balances. surplus undivided
profits ard unemployed capital so lcrg
as the price of henequin keeps r0-and
there is not hundred square feet of
henequin land for sale in Yrcatan. The
only failures are those of foreigners
who have I ed to break in"
Another big planter sent his family,
only two members Of which had ever
been ont of the country before, to New
York and the Continent to have a good
time, Before the family left he gave
the eldest son 100000 in French
securities as expense money. The old
gentleman he'd not the faintest idea what |
the trip would cost and did not care. |
saw a pair cf Kentucky horses sold on
the streets OF Merida for $500 in god |
happen to know they cost the dealer
lust 500 in Lexington.
lin the houses OF the wealthy in Meri-
la it is amusing as well as pathetic to
see the old provincial Spanish system OF |
affairs, in which the woman
s subservicnt TO the last degree and the
Interior of the house devoid of mobiliary !
combating the American
modern idea, which means folding beds,
automatically played pianos, straight
ront corset,, appalling wall papers, car
,ets, hird'S-ey maple dressing tables
et in the parlor, and so on. Henequin
las done ii all.