The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1908-03-19
VACATION AND PORTO RICO
Sketch Of Outing on One of West In
dian Islands.
The Island of Porto Rico


The Island of Porto Rico
One of the most interesting tips
made by our party was a visit to the
Allen fruit farm several miles south of
San Juan and near the village of Bay
anon. There are several ways Of get
ting there and, as 1t turned out, we
chose the hardest, at least for those
who did the work We hired small
sloop with a crew of two sun baked
Porto Ricans to sail us across the bay
and up the Bayamon river to land
ing about mile from the farm we de-
sired to visit.
When you ask as to distnace In
Porto Rico you get an answer In either
kilometers or leagues and are likely to
be deceived either way, as kilomoter
is considerably less than mile while
a league is considerably more. The
metric system Is In general use In
the island so that officially distances
are given in kilometers and where
stones are set up they mark kilometers
and not miles. And when you buy
beef, -four, ETC., the weight Is reckoned
In Kilograms instead of pounds.
But | started to tell of our trip by
sailboat TO the Allen fruit farm. 1t
was a beautiful sail across the bay
and into the mouth of the river, but
there the fringe OF tropical trees cut
off the wind and there was three miles
Of crooked river between us and our
destination. We had by this time
learned enough OF Porto Rico habits
not to do anything that we could put
off or get anybody to 90 for US so we
sweltered in the sun aud watched the
boatmen work us up the river through
what Yankee boys call a "white ash
breeze" twas clumsy old GOAT
and those two boatmen earned ali the
money they got for the job
At the Allen farm landing we met
Frederick II. johnson, young man
from Florida who owns fine orange
and grapefruit orchard just ad
joining the Allen property and as q
esult OF getting acquainted with hin
we visited his property instead OF the
Allen place. He has % acres set GU
to oranges aud grape fruit. All the
trees are of good size and in full bear
ing and the sigh. TO US Vermonter'
was the finest we saw in the island.
1t was heart.breaking though to US
to see thousands of fine oranges rot
ting on the ground. Oranges are Sc
low in price that 1t does not pay tt
ship anything but the finest fruit and
the rest hangs on the tree until i
spoils. We were invited to eat all w
wished and had an orange eating con
test lively enough 10 draw a goot
sized audience to Library hall. There
may have been some error in th'
count but, from the best statistics OBJ
tainable Martha Pratt ate eleven ant
Mr.. Gibson sixteen. The rest of u
brought up In the rear. Beulah wa
i'll the next day, but OF course ] do no
say that 1t was from overeating.
Even more interesting than tn
oranges, at least to me, we're tn
grapefruit Of which Mr.. Johnson ha
: about 100 trees. The number of biz
yellow fruit these trees bear Is moth
, ing less than marvellous. / counted
as many as fourteen on one limb nj
larger than lead pencil aud bearing
II down until they rested on the ground
Any one OF the fourteen was large
than my two fists.
The demand for grapefruit in tn
United States Is larger than the sup
, Iply and none are allowed to go Il
, waste. The best fruit Is shipped Il
, New York while the smaller ant
, poorer and that which gets little to-
ripe is sold In the local market. i
the San Juan market first class grape
fruit is worth from so to 60 cents pc
dozen. The fruit of similar size an
quality Is sold by Dominique here IL
Bennington at Is cents each. | an
I inclined to believe that Mr.. Corsigli'
, or some other local dealer could maxi
good thing by buying direct from
Porto Rico grower and having tn
fruit shipped by express. They coul'
J reach dealer here at cost of no
3 over six or seven cents each and a
I the ruling prices would net a larg
: margin of profit
Grapefruit will stand shippinI
lmuch better than oranges and are als
better keepers so that there Is it'll
risk in handling them unless they ar
exposed to frost. The Porto Ric
, grapefruit crop is later in the mail
3 than that of Florida and California an,
e lis therefore calculated to bring goo
prices. 1t also costs less to ship iron
San Juan to New York than iron
Florida. Grapefruit is one of the bes
money crops on the island and MI
Johnson is busy tearing out a youn
orange grove in order to set out grape
, fruit there. The demand for thl
'. choice fruit is growing in Europe a
,,o,I &C int bic countryand owing to Ii