Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 September 1899 — INDUSTRIAL OPENINGS. [ARTICLE]

INDUSTRIAL OPENINGS.

a Porto Bleo to SwiniH Mra W Rwmll Capital. Limes, which are used universally on the island, are very abundant, and during the flowering season perfume the air for yards around with the delicate odor of their blossoms. The fruit? readies a size and perfection seldom seen elsewhere, ana the large pa-per-skinned varieties almost cause one to mistake them for lemons. They are never raised with intent and never exported, but they may always be found freeh in market places. The bottling of lime juice has been found very remunerative elsewhere, and is offered as a business suggestion. Porto Rican pineapples are famous for their delicious flavor and wonderful bouquet; in fact, it is even admitted in Cuba that the pineapple par excellence is grown on the sister island. It has only been within the last decade that any attempt at systematic culture has been made, and the industry is yet carried on In the most primitive manner. The Mayaguez district is the one in which, they are grown for export, and in other portions of the island, where never above a hundred or so are grown in a single patch, they are used for home consumption, the inferior ones alone finding their way to the local markets’.

The raising of the above-named fruits—bananas, oranges, limes, lemons and pineapples—offers industrial openings of merit for men of small capital, who cannot or dare not indulge in the high-priced luxuries of sugar growing, coffee or tobacco plantations. It is a sure way to modest wealth, and it is believed that no investor for the next ten years, can go amiss by putting his money and his wits into this form of toil. What are sorely needed to-day, however, to assure complete success, are direct lines of fruiters running from the island ports to the great marts of our Atlantic seaboard. It is possible on account of the lack of such transportation that the more perishable fruits have never found their way to the United States.

Cocoanuts grow everywhere along the sandy coast lines, and old coral rocks which have been covered oven with rich silts and sands, afford a perfect soil for their prolific growing. It is said that cocoanut raising is very profitable; that is, it gives large returns for the money invested; but there is much more labor connected with the industry than the casual observer would imagine. The sandy margins of the coast line, where siugarestate holders are willing to part with them, are sold for very low figures. The trees rapidly spring to maturity, and after a very few years bear immense annual crops of nuts. The heavy expenses lie in the laborious methods) of gathering the nuts by climbing the trees and hacking the branches from the lofty heights, and again in the difficulties which are met" with in releasing the nuts from the heavy fibrous husks*. Cultivation of the sandy loams in which the trees grow is unnecessary, and hence, there are no expenses in this direction. A very profitable business is* the extracting of oil from the nuts-, as half a dozen large ones will furnish a quart of oil. The writer hesitates to make too much of a point regarding this industry in Porto Rico, as the suitable areas are not numerous!, and there are so many far more desirable localities along the coast of Cuba, where thousands of acres are available in aingla stretches. It is one of the economic possibilities, even here, which should by no means be overlooked.—Harper’s Weekly.