Deseret evening news. [volume] (Great Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1867-1920, 1908-01-11
BIG MONEY IN
BANANA CULTURE
Utah and Idaho Capitalists APP
parentIy Have a Good Thing
In Old Mexico.
HANDSOME HEADQUARTERS.
Montczuma Orange and Banana Com
pany Occupies New Offices in
The Dooly Block Today

salt Lake has been recognized for
years as the financial instigator' OF en-
terprises involving horticultural and
agricultural undertakings until today
they can be encountered north of the
Canadian line and south TO the shores
of the Gulf of Mexico. and even further.
To-Day handsome new quarters have
been opened in suite 300 Dooly block
for a corporation which has to date
been hiding its light under busbel.
Judging nom external evidences there
Is money in tropical agriculture, ever,
ia its incipiency IL handsome office
furniture and appointments are any
criterion.
CAPITALISTS INTERESTED.
The corporation which has taken
the new quarters is the Montezuma
Grange and Banana company, the pio-
neer of the various tropical fruit prop
ositions. which have been SO success
fully launched since the Spanish
American war. Utah mon are inter
ested in It and are backing their faith
In substantial fashion. AT Its head is
ii. j.. Griffin, the big fruit and com
mission man of Ogden, who has the
reputation of knowing more about the
banana In all its various forms than
DphhIDly any JULIET MHOlthdlt ucdttl III
this or contiguous states. Associated
with him are such names as w. $.
Mccormick, John Shelley, the Idaho
banker; Mat Thomas and others who
have invested.
HARVEST CERTIFICATES. "
1--WE have several splendid agents
in the field" was the announcement of
Frank j. Fullmer, the secretary of
the Montezuma Orange and Banana
company this morning. There are
number of corporations which have
holdings in the vicinity of the port
of Tampico near which our plantation
is located. We were the pioneers in
that rich section ana today we have a
larger acreage under cultivation and
more plants growing on the land clear
ed than any other company operating
in Mexico from this side of the line.
At present there is great demand for
our harvest certificates as well as
stock" Then Mr.. Fullmer marshalled
his data, all of which is shortly to
be Incorporated In a high art booklet
with a special design upon which NJ.
NJ Young, the clever young Salt Lake
artist, Is now at work, and proceeded
to demonstrate from consular govern
ment and specialists reports that after
the first harvest the income from q sim
gle acre of land ringing the Tamesi
river that has been PLANTED with this
tropical fruit should be from $3.50 to
S22h an acre each year-and the in
vestment of $3.50 secures the ownership
of one acre of bananas emitting tho
owner to s per cent per annum the first
| year. and also to 90 per cent of the
net proceeds OF every harvest there
aftert-why, 1t had gold mine stocks
beaten q city block, and Salt Lake City
blocks are the longest in the world.
UP TO DATE METHODS.
Then the. secretary LAUNCHED into
further detail and told what good
man the company had secured to oper-
ate the plantation and how system
Of monthly field reports had been in
augurated so that the members of the
company We're kept constantly posted
and how plats of the properties duly
blocked out were in course of being
drafted so that each person interested
could have monthly denominations
or the work accomplished without the
trouble and expense of a personal in
spr ctior. The mental picture conjured
Up of banana punches, orange groves,
pneapples and all kinds OF vegetables
and tropical fruits hourlshing at
Christmas time made his auditor con-
tract "wanderlust" and desire TO pack
his grip and HE south to the tur-
Quolse-blue Gulf OF Mexico.
In the meantime there Is little
crowd of Utah and Idaho people now
actively demonstrating to the languid-
eyed McXicans that there are stacks of
d"llars to De CLEANED from some OF the
richest soil In the world which has laid
neglected from the days of the Aztecs