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THE CUBA REVIEW. 



CUBAN AGRICULTURE AND AMERICAN COLONY NOTES. 



Omaja Colonists — La Gloria High School — Ten Days in Cuba — A Famous Hen, Etc. 



Omaja and Its Colonists. 



Cmaja is an American colony, two 

 and one-half years old, 98 miles west of 

 Santiago, now numbering many hun- 

 dred Americans, mostly persons who 

 have come for cheap homes, health, or 

 to flee from the hard winters of the 

 North. 



Our land is woodland and prairie, with 

 woods and streams. We also have some 

 mountains, in shape like the ant hills of 

 Ohio, and mineral deposits, copper, gold 

 and iron. Our forests furnish such valu- 

 able timbers as mahogany, ebony 

 (scarce); futele, yellow wood; saba-cue, 

 darker than mahogany, very hard, 



holding several hundred barrels; drilled 

 wells are inexhaustible, for stock drinking 

 but not good for man. Cistern water is 

 quite fair, cooled by the trade winds 

 blowing across the isle. 



Cuba has only two seasons— wet and 

 dry, dry being winter, "so-called;" never 

 cold. Two mornings in March showed 

 46 degrees F. in our dining room, with- 

 out doors or windows, but we felt it with 

 our gauze undergarments on. By 7 to 

 8 it is warm, and by 11 to 3 from 65 to 

 80 degrees. Summer represents the 

 rainy season. This year it began April 

 22. Then the planting begins in earnest, 

 as prior to this it is too dry and hard 



Part of the Omaja colonists on Thanksgiving Day, 1907- 



heavy; carne-de-baca (meaning the flesh 

 of the cow in Spanish, which resembles 

 fresh-cut meat); acrina, dark red; pina- 

 de-savannah, beautiful, all colors, and 

 valuable, small trees; mahagua, shade of 

 green; hocaima, white. Also quite a few 

 lighter and cheaper woods. Mahogany 

 is plentiful. Tables and chairs are made 

 solid, no veneering being done here. 

 Cedar is plentiful, used for shingles and 

 building lumber. Some houses are built 

 throughout with cedar, except roof, 

 which, of necessity, is galvanized iron, 

 slate, concrete or tile, on account of 

 water. The water, as a rule, has miner- 

 als in it. People build large cisterns 



to start plants or seeds, but with mois- 

 ture and sunshine we now begin to have 

 higher temperature. Sometimes, when 

 trade winds are lull, the thermometer- 

 runs high, but usually it is cool in shade. 

 We are now using melons, squashes, 

 corn, cabbage, onions, beans, tomatoes, 

 sweet potatoes, egg plants, etc., some 

 being planted earlier. Our Jersey sweet 

 potatoes were brought from Ohio two 

 years ago. They flourish here, and are 

 hardy growers. We take the vines, coil 

 them, cover, leaving several inches; then 

 in a few months you may have fine large 

 tubers, such a blessing. Our stand-bys, 

 the Irish potatoes, are poor producers, 



