The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-02-09

l ping place and midway on the road to | Europe it's use by the United States
 navy has been of inestimable value. 1 Hundreds of small naval craft-con.
 verted yachts, destroyers, chasers and 1 tugs-would have been hard put to il i to make the crossing If it had not been l for the Azores. Now that the censor- | ship lid had been lifted it is permis- 1 sible to say that the course follow cd 1 by most of these small craft in cross | ing the Atlantic has been from the l states to Bermuda Chis majestys dock | yard on Ireland islandl to the Azoreas 1 (American naval base 13 at Ponta DeI- l gada) and thence to their destinations. In the terrific storms which swept the Atlantic last winter when most of these small craft were streaming into the war zone. it is hard to see how most i of them would have lived had it not ! been for Bermuda and the Azores As l a coaling and repair base. the Ameri- can base at Ponta Delgada was one of | the first to be established in the war zone and probably will be the last to l be demobilized
 | From the first, the Americans here were menaced by enemy submarines Be- l tween the Azores and Gibraltar. they 1 operated for time in the same hilari
 ous security in which they operated for
 time in the Mediterranean. The credit 1 for this enemy success belongs partly
 to Spain.
 STAINS RESPONSIBILITY
 ] To lover of the Mediterranean. Spain 1 is pure delight. But to lover of the allied cause, Spain is nightmare The
 time has passed for the printing of pussy footed persflage on the subject of 1 Spain. Germans from Morocco, from | Portugal and from France have poured 1 into, Spain siDce the. war began, and the ] l,German ambafsa5oy .ju Madrid has had 10000 German busyhodies at-his dispos- | tion throughout the war, most of whom | have at some time or other tried to in- l terest themselves in Gibraltar. German 1 submarines have unloaded French cur
 rency from the occ\oied territories in | France into Spanish r<A.s to depress the l rate of exchange in Gibraltar. No con- voy has gone out of Gibraltar since the ! war began without it's departure having | been seen by German eyes. Tn the 1000 | Spanish laborers employed at his majes- | tvs dockyard in Gibraltar, nobody knows | how many Germans have been numbered | Up and down the coasts of Spain, Spanish
 authorities have winked a the provision | ing of German submarines.
 ! The same German influences which 1 have been constant menace to Gibralta,
 have been felt by the Americans at Ponta 1 Delgada. The Canary Islands, which are 1 Spanish territoI~, have been so notori- ousiy supply point for enemy subma- rines that Americans on escort duty al | the Azores referred to them as Canary l cruisers To meet the submarine men, l ace, an American submarine flotila has
 been based on Ponta Delgada and has patrolled the seas within a radius of 200
 miles with such success that enemy sub- marines after the Orion's episode o1 July A. 1917, have kept their distance | This flotilla has been composed of our | older submarines. the K-boats, having | the monitor. U. s. s. Tonopah, for their
 mothership. (Our newer submarines, the | L-boats, have been based on Bantry Is-
 land, Ireland. So far as I know. Bantry 1 Bay and Ponta Delgada have been our l only submarine bases in the war Zone.) | The Azores has further military signi- ficance in the fact that one of the great | est cable centers in the Atlantic is To- cated at Horta. the little harbor on the 1 island of Fayal. Seven cables converge here They are operated by German. | British and American companies the last named holding the smallest interest | of the three. The German station. of course, has been closed during the war. | From this center, cables run to New ] York, Halifax, Hamburg (through Canso 1 and Emdem, Waterville and Lisbon.
 1 The chief wealth of the Azores lies in ! it's pineapple crop, of which in 1910, 1,- | 5OOOO0 were exported, chiefly to London | and Hamburg. The Azorean pineapple l is grown in hothouses which hold from | 200 to 2000 each and in London the best 1 specimens before the war brought as high | as g apiece.
 | The story of the production of other | crops has been a tragic one The soil is ! exceedingly fertile and the thrifty nature | of the Azorean working class is such
 that every inch of ground, outside of
 mountain peaks and rocky headands, Is | cultivated. Oranges used to be great
 crop 2o9,36o, GOO having been exported to | England alone as far back as 1859. A
 blight which struck the orange trees lat CT, however greatly reduced the crop. | The American Isabella grape has also | been widely cultivated. The average pro-
 duction of wine fAr the last few years | has been 5,5OO.000 litres. Recently. how ever, the appearance of the phylloxera 1 blight has threatened the wine indus- l try. ct is on the island of Pico of the Azores group, by the way. that the fa- nous white wine, Pco Blanco. is grown.)
 AVOIDABLE FAILURES
 | These crop failures are distinctly ayoidable. Scientific treatment which is not available in the Azores under it's pre- sent administration. would make verita- l bIe garden spot out of these rich. green, 1 semi-tropical islands.
 l Toba eco. tea, bananas and flax are
 also produced At Capellas, near Ponta
 Delgada is a whaling station which has been one of the luckiest in the world in years gone by Pottery and cane chairs
 are produced in large quantities.
 1 The Azores are of volcanic origin and
 abound in extinct craters. gaseous ema- nations and hot springs. On the island
 of Graciosa, is an enormous volcanic sul-
 phur cave. to whose bottom tourists de- scend, tied to a cabSe. There is a huge, extinct crater on the island of Fayal,
 and small crater from which hot gas still issues at the top of the mountain
 which forms the island of Pico. CPico is