THE CUBA REVIEW 



19 



Church, La Gloria. 



grapefruit to speak of and the Cuban cannot be taught the good quaUties contained in the best 

 of citrus fruits, and the grower is obhged to find his only and best market in the north, which, 

 under present conditions, is not easy for the grower. The Cuban grapefruit is superior to the 

 Florida-grown variety in many ways, among them being the color and size of the fruit and 

 the rich sweetness of the juice. If only all American lovers of grapefruit could test the 

 Cuban-grown fruit we are sure they would be satisfied with nothing else. 



The large cultivated groves are situated some three miles out from the town and the oldest 

 tract and one of the first in the vicinity called "Mercedes" is devoted largely to the growing of 

 oranges. The groves in this section seem to have been somewhat neglected, due, no doubt, 

 largely to the movement to a newer tract and located in another direction from the town, 

 called "Canasi." The oranges grown in the "Mercedes" tract are fine specimens of beautiful 

 color and sweet, but inclined to be small, and are marketed principally in Cuba. The nearer 

 shipping port for this section is Port Piloto to which the larger part of the fruit is hauled for 

 shipment. There is a large sawmill on this road which has been abandoned for sometime, but 

 we understand that, due to activity shown by the growers and increased shipments north of 

 their fruit, the company at Palm City has decided to return to the old mill site and re-open 

 the saw mill to better fill the increasing orders for boxes for grapefruit shipments. The La 

 Gloria Pure Cane Sugar mill at La Gloria is to be remodeled and fitted with necessary machin- 

 ery for grinding sugar cane. The machinery is now at hand and engineers from the Geo. L. 

 Squire Mfg. Co. of Buffalo will soon arrive to make installation. This will mean a greater 

 acreage of cane grown in La Gloria and vicinity for grinding in the new mill. 



The newly developed "Canasi" tract consists of some five thousand acres, of which eight 

 hundred acres are planted in grapefruit and orange trees, some now bearing good marketable 

 fruit, and as the time passes the whole of these eight hundred acres will be bearing grapefruit 

 to he extent of 50,000 boxes of fruit each season — all for the northern markets. One 

 instantly wonders how the growers away down here can compete with our own growers in 

 the States after the facilities of getting the fruit to market are considered and compared, 

 but it is the old story of the Americans wanting the best at any cost, and the best grapefruit 

 are grown in Cuba. And when the facilities for transporting this fruit to northern markets 

 are improved so as to lay their fruit down in New York in good shape within from five to six 



