Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-09

It expects to establish a town upon It's
lands, and will divide part of it into
forty or fifty-acre tracts for sale to Amerl-
cans. / understand that the price paid FOR
the land was in the neighborohood of five
dollars per acre, or about S125,OO0.
Cuba has large areas of forests. Nearly
the whole of the eastern part is covered
with woods. Nearly all the way from
Camaguey to Santiago is through virgin
forest. This is so on the branch line of the
Cuba road from Alto Cedro to Nipe bay.
and l understand that the forests extend
back for many miles on both sides of that
road
These Cuban forests rank and thick;
the trees are large and bound together with
vines. Nearly every one carries machete
In travelling through the woods, in order
to cut his way from one place to another.
The trees include mahogany cedar, ebony,
walnut, majagua, ceiba, oak, pines, rose
wood, logwood, cottonwood, lgnum vitae
and about thirty varieties of palms There
are also a large number of dyewoods and
many medicinal bushes and plants.
Much of the wood is good for furniture,
and a Grand Rapids company has bought
sixteen thousand acres and is about es-
tabishing factory In the northern part OF
the island. to make furniture for the Cuban
market. At present nearly everything of
this kind is imported and all home-m ade
furniture is high priced.
American Colonies in Cuba.
The fact that most of the lands are for
SAFE only IN large TRACTS HAS leu 70 the or
ganza ton of American colonies. Private
parties and syndicates buying up
tates of from 10000 to 10000 acres and
dividing them up into thirty, forty and
ffty-acre tracts which are sold at prices
ranging from $50 and upward per acre.
There are at present perhaps a dozen or so
such colonies in active operation, but so
far they have not been in existence long
enough to say that they will be lasting sue
ceSSeS,
These colonizlng companies present their
lands to customers chiefly as tropical fruit
growing propositions. They send out glow
ing prospectuses, stating that such tracts
can be made to produce $500 or $500 and
upward an acre per year. They say a
, farm of fifty acres in Cuba is worth more
than one of two hundred acres in the
United States, and if the land is rightly
chosen to location and quality l doubt
not that they are correct. The soil here is
| rich and the products are enormous.
Fortunes in Fruit
/ have before me number of such pros
| pectuses. They say that land planted in
cacao, the tree that yields the chocolate
bean. should yield at least SEQ an acre
| per year. The cacao trees come into bear
| ing in four or five years. and when full
! grown should average eight or ten pounds
| per tree. Two hundred and fifty trees can
be grown on an acre, ana the caca0 Deans
| will seal, SO ii is stated at 10 cents a pound.
| AS to pineapples, these prospectuses- say
6,OO0 can be grown on one acre and they
| will sell from to 10 cents apiece, which
seem to me high prices.
| The stories of orange growing are even
| more glowing. ten-acre grove, according
| to these estimates will make a man indie
| pendent and fifty acres will net him for
| tune. In one advertisement l that ten
| acres of oranges should yield within five
| years after planting $1,000, from which. de-
| Quoting the cost of the land and the trees
| $500, leaving cash profit of $3.50. These
/ figures are based on the hypothesis that a
| man cares for his own orchard and that
/ the trees begin to bear at three years. 1t
/ is stated that after the fifth year the yield
/ will greatly increase, and that at the age
/ of ten years the ten-acre grove should pro-
duce from 5000 TO $4,000 year.
1t Is a common statement here that Q