1899 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



comes a note which is of such interest that I 

 submit it to our readers. — Ed.] 



I found so few bees on the island, and so 

 much starvation and misery, that, instead of 

 spending the winter, a month there was enough 

 for me this time. I also investigated Porto 

 Rico through Dr. Vieta, of Cienfuegos. His 

 last honey crop was only three hundred and 

 sixty thousand pounds from two apiaries. So 

 you see California isn't in the lead with her 

 65 tons from one man. 



W. W. SOMERFORD. 



[Only 360,000 pounds of honey from two 

 apiaries! and all produced by one man! My, 

 oh my! Suppose the duty on Cuban honey 

 w ere to be removed ; and suppose it is thrown 

 in such quantities on the American markets ; 

 and suppose — well, I will let the reader do the 

 rest of the supposin'. Here is the article, and 

 I am sure it will be read with interest :] 



Starvation in Cuba ! I have just returned 

 from a trip through Cuba — a sort of inventory 

 trip — to ascertain wbat was left, after the war, 

 of some of the finest apiaries in the world, 

 and also to embark in the bee business again 

 in Cuba after an absence of four years from 

 that island. I visited many apiaries that were 

 in a run-down condition, and will report 

 through Gleanings the situation in Cuba 

 exactly as one now finds it. But by way of 

 caution I will suggest to those in a hurry to 

 embark in the honey business in Cuba that 

 there's plenty of time; the island is not such 

 a paradise just now — not even for the modern 

 honey-producer. And to those bee-keepers in 

 the States who fear that the American market 

 is going to be ruined by cheap dark grades of 

 honey from Cuba I will say that Amsterdam, 

 Holland, and foreign cities in general, get the 

 honey that's produced in Cuba — not the 

 American markets. The American honey- 

 producers in Cuba, who have tried the United 

 States markets, have paid for their experience 

 in shipping, commission, lighterage, freight, 

 cooperage, drayage (import duty 10 cents per 

 gallon), and commission, to say nothing of 

 leakage ; and by the time these charges are 

 figured up, and the cost of package added, at 

 the Cuban cost, 5 cts. per gallon, the shipper 

 wonders why he didn't sell in Havana at 40 or 

 50 cts per gallon net (packages paid for by 

 the honey buyer). 



After traveling hundreds of miles over the 

 country I came to the conclusion that next 

 October or November will be soon enough for 

 the would-be Cuban bee-keepers to embark 

 for Cuba; and to impress the fact on the minds 

 of those who, like myself, are in a hurry to 

 get to Cuba before it is overrun (with any 

 thing but starvation), I will describe one of 

 Miss Clara Barton's Red Cross kitchens that 

 are now numerous and famous in Cuba. 



The kitchens are located in some out-of-the- 

 way place or back street in the cities. This 

 one was at Sagua Lagrande — a city of 20,000 

 inhabitants in Santa Clara province, on Sagua 

 River. The kitchen is nothing more nor less 

 than a row of pots under some old shed, sur- 



rounded by a good wall or fence, with water 

 convenient. The pots are surrounded with 

 masonry, the same as sugar-kettles, and hold 

 about 100 gallons each. In the above city 

 2500 people are kept from starving by the 

 provisions cooked and distributed from the 

 pots, steaming hot, at meal time. A list of 

 the ones nearest death's door is made. The 

 number of persons in each family is taken 

 down in a large book, and a ticket given to 

 each family to correspond with his name. 

 These tickets are carried daily to the kitchen ; 

 about fifty people are let into the kitchen in- 

 closure at a time, with tickets in hand, and 

 they march in a row by the book-keeper, and 

 a tally is made for each ticket opposite his (or 

 her) name ; then the ticket is handed to the 

 superintendent (Manuel Sanguily w T as in 

 charge at Sagua City ), who reads out the num- 

 ber of rations each ticket calls for ; thus, four 

 and four, two and two, three and a half and 

 three and a half, or one and one, which means 

 one ration of boiled beans and one ration of 

 rice. Two men stand over the pots of beans 

 and rice, each with ladle in hand, one dipping 

 beans, the other rice, with ladles that hold 

 about a pint and a half each ; so one and one 

 means a dish of beans and a dish of rice that 

 will feed a person well for a day, so far as 

 quantity is concerned. 



The utensils carried for provisions by the 

 starving people are as different as the people 

 are themselves, ranging from gourds to 10 lb. 

 paint- kegs. Such a variety can only be im- 

 agined, not described ; and such a variety of 

 faces and dresses one would never see in 

 America. There were many half-starved half- 

 naked children from ten to fifteen years old 

 that had gone barebacked and bareheaded in 

 the sun until they were as well specked with 

 " freckles " as a turkey egg — a pitiful sight it 

 was to behold. 



But the most touching sight was when all 

 who had ration tickets were supplied and gone, 

 leaving about a hundred desolate unfortunates 

 outside the gate, with buckets, cans, gor.rds, 

 etc., but no tickets to admit or entitle them to 

 the remaining rations in the pots, as some 

 food generally remains after the list has been 

 supplied. 



Mr. Sanguily stood in the gate and beckon- 

 ed in the ones who were the nearest to death's 

 door, and had them given " half and half," or 

 half a ration each. But to look into tie faces 

 of those poor starving people, when each was 

 trying his best to look the most miserable in 

 order to be beckoned in for half a ration, was 

 a sight that a lifetime can't erase from one's 

 memory — no, never. The misery and desola- 

 tion in Cuba have never been told, and the 

 martyrs for her liberty are too numerous to be 

 numbered. 



Navasota, Tex. 



[One can hardly fail to have his heart touch- 

 ed by such things as these. For one I ft el 

 proud that our dear Uncle Sam, although per- 

 haps a little late, has freed the Cubans fiom 

 the hand of the despot. May Christianity, 

 enlightenment, and progress find their way to 

 these benighted hearts. — Ed.] 



aian 



