Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1920-07-23
SUGAR SPEAKEASY
! IS NOT UNCOMMON
Geographic Society Bulletin
Describes Cuba as 1920
FL Dorado.

Sugar. like shoes. we once took for
granted Now procuring enough for
the preserving season may be a prob
lem, and sugar "speakeasies" are not
uncommon in lands where the supply
is rationed
Writing to the National Geographic
Society, William Joseph ShowaIter
says:
With a sugar production NEARLY
doubled and prices more than uuadru-
pied since 1912, one can readily see
why cuba is the worlds Ell Dorado of
l9ZO, and why sugar is it's king
The imagination is almost over
powered in attempting to compre-
hend the vast proportions of the su-
gar industry of the island as it exists
this year.
Large Volume of Cane.
The cane produced is of such ire
me-, volume that a procession of
Dun teams four abreast, reaching
around the earth, would be required
10 move it, The crop would suffice to
build solid wall around the entire
Two Thousand miles of the islands
coast line as high as an ordinary
dwelling house and thick enough for
ME OF four men to walk abreast
on il. GIL
me sugar extracted from this cane
would load a fleet of steamers reach
-'-o Vim iAdSdud 10 New York with
d snip TOT every mile of the twelve
hundred that stretch between the two
POTS. Ihe great pyramid of Cheops,
eiolo whose aWe-inspiring proper
IONS millions of people have stood
and gazed in open-mouthed amaze-
ment, remains, after five Thousand
years unrivaled as monumental
piie, out CuoaS sugar output this
year would make two pyramids, each
ou .s1 passing and overlapping Cheops
nf
crop brings in is not less remarkahIa
IN us proportions. Four hundred dol
lars out of a single crop for every
human being who lives on the island
"a sum almost as great as the per
capita wealth produced by all the
farms. all the factories and all the
mines OF the United States!
What wonder then. that Cuba to-
oay is land of gold and gems, rich
er than Midas ever was, converting
Croesus, by contrast. into a beggar,
Three Glasses of Planters.
Sugar cane is grown by three class
es or planters in Cuba. Perhaps the
major par of the crop is grown by
i snare farmers. or 'colonas' as they
are called. The owners of the sugar
mills furnish them with given num-
Der of acres of land to plant and give
them an agreed share of the sugar
they produce.
| The next class is composed of the
!land-owning farmers, who grow their
own cane and have it ground on
| shares. after the fashion of the rural
| gristmill. The remainder of the cane
! is grown by the owners of the mills
themselves. At some centrals the 'ad-
mlnlStratlon' cane as that grown I'M
der central management is known
amounts to only per cent of the
| total; at others it amounts to 80 per
! cent.
Even the share farmer, at pre-
war prices. made money. According
to Cuba Before the World the official
handbook of the republic at the Pan
ama-Pacif1c exposition, when sugar
was selling at 2.62 cents a pound, his
/ share of the sugar brought him, on
~khe basis of twelve sacks to the acre
a return of from s46 to ISL per. acre.
F; The return of the planter owning his
! land was from $56 to SCI per acre.
When one remembers that the selling
price of sugar is from four to six
| times as high in 1920 as it was then,
I! the size of the per acre income today
is apparent.
Net Profit PrOblematical.
grower reaps at 1920 prices is hard to
estimate, but that it is large will
appear when the methods of cane
igrowing are stated. To begin with.
after the first crop the planter does
not have to bother with seed.time
4
deep and so fertile than one planting
produces ten harvests. Neither does
| cultivation bother him after the first
season. for the blades stripped from
| one crop form a mulch that keeps
| the weeds from competing with the
| next one.
| Think of the profits that the
American farmer would make out of
| corn if he could get ten crops from
| one planting, and did not have to
pillow nine of them at all to keep down
! the weeds!
Another item in the low cost of
producing sugar is the cheapness of
the motive power. The cane is hauled
in ox-carts. The oxen live from six
to ten months a year on the blades
stripped from the harvested stalks.
and the remainder of the year on
|succuient guinea grass. Think how
prosperous would be the American
farmer if he could have animal mo-
tive power requiring not pound of
grain to feed it!''