The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-06-06

in on carts, containing 5000 each. from the orchards. The oranges are handled like so many potatoes. The driver backs his cart against one of the piles on the banks and dumps out the fruit just as our workmen dump dirt in repairing the roads In the ordinary season oranges are really worth little more than the dirt of our country A cartful will sell for S5, and you can buy all you can eat for or 3 cents.
 So far there has been no breeding up of the fruit trees. There are but few navel oranges. and much of the fruit is practically wild. Nevertheless, it is de- licious. and the country might be made a great orange grove for the dense popd- lation that is bound to some day popu- late the southern part of this continent
 Paraguay is raising good sugar cane, and it has been exporting to Hamburg and Bremen about 1900 O0o,ooo pounds of tobacco a year. The soil will grow all sorts of vegetables and fruit and it is be- lieved that cotton and bananas will some day be raised for export.
 Paraguay is a natural stock country. The grass is green all the year round. Much of the country is one mighty park of green plains spotted with groves. There is water everywhere, and the cattle need but little care, except at the times of the annual round-ups. So far there has been no great upbreeding of stock. and but few importations of Durhams, Herefords and Shorthorns, as in the Argentine and q s1xo our Texas cattle of the past. They are long -horned, rangy animals, which will have to be greatly improved before they will do for chilled beef. Such as are now killed for their meat are for the sale deros the flesh being turned into beef extract or salted and dried for export. As you ride through Paraguay you see strips and sheets of such meat hanging upon poles and swaying to and fro in the breeze, and the people seem to like it better than the freshly killed beef. Such meat is eaten in the West Indies Islands, in Brazil, Argentina. and, in fact. in nearly all of the South American coun- tries It is used for stews, being cooked with rice, potatoes and mandioca.
  Paraguay has great future as meat producer. The prices of cattle are ris- ing, and, with little care, the pas turage here can be made as good as that of the Argentine. l am told thaI some trainloads of cattle have already been shipped over the new railway to Beunos Aires and that if the stock can be bred up, there is no reason why millions of head should not there find profitable market. The good caTtle lands are to be found not only in Para 6uay proper, but also in various places throughout the Chaco and there are now companies and syndicates who are buying the grass lands and preparing to stock them.
 Indeed, it is in such companies that American capital is now becoming largely interested. l have already re- ferred to MT. G. L. Rickard or 'Tex Rickard," as he is popularly known among the sporting circles of our coun- try Tine business with which he Is connected is known as the New York and Paraguay company chartered ii Delaware. It has capital of a million and half dollars gold, and it owns about a million acres of land in west ern Para quay, perhaps 40 hours by steamer north of Asuncion. It's neares, large city is Conception, which is about 132 miles up the river. The company las a town of it's own, of the name oi Puerto Penasco. It has already erected 75 buildings, including a hotel, a drug store d public bakery and a postoffice and jail. 1t has it's own police force, au-