THE CUBA REVIEW 



25 



A Cuban town during the rainy season, which begins generally in May and continues until Uctober. 



uncommon to see a Cuban eat a dozen 

 oranges at a sitting. The buyers come to 

 the groves and take the oranges in rice and 

 sugar sacks to the station where they are 

 dumped into the cars and are shipped this 

 way in bulk to the larger cities. Some of 

 the oranges are bought in ox carts in bulk 

 piled four feet high and are drawn this 

 way sometimes for 10 or 20 miles over the 

 rough country roads. Sometimes they are 

 delivered to sail boats and are taken to 

 some port along the coast. The growers 

 like this way, for they get the cash for their 

 fruit the day it is picked and they are get- 

 ting a dollar a hundred for navels, no culls, 

 no washing, no packing, no expense of pa- 

 per, boxes, freight, duty, cartage, lighterage, 

 dockage, shrinkage and commission. The 

 Cuban people like navels and tangerines 

 and are quite willing to part wtih their 

 hard-earned dollars to get them. — Canet 

 CCuba) correspondence of the Neiv York 

 Packer. 



FUTURE OF CUBA S FRUITS 



The reduction of the duty on grapefruit 

 from 64c. to 28c. per box is giving a stim- 

 ulus to the business of planting and giving 

 better care to the many groves which thus 

 far have been in a semi-abandoned state. 

 Oranges are improving in quality from year 

 -±0 vear as the trees near mature bearing 



age. There will be no need to ship oranges 

 from Cuba to the United States for some 

 years to come. Oranges are selling on the 

 trees from 75c. to $1.50 per hundred, ac- 

 cording to the size and varieties. 



In order to control the prices on oranges 

 in Cuba for the benefit of the growers the 

 majority of the crop should be in control 

 of a combination of growers for better 

 distribution in order that there should not 

 be an over-supply of fruit on the market 

 at any one time. As the case now stands, 

 there are times when three or four carloads 

 of oranges arrive at the same time on the 

 Havana market; besides these, there are 

 many thousands brought in from the coun- 

 try by the freight carts and the coast-wise 

 steamers ; all these arriving on the market 

 at_ practically the same time, causes the 

 prices of oranges on the Havana market to 

 be very fickle : one week there will be a 

 large over-supply, while perhaps ten days 

 from that time there will be a scarcity 

 which will run the price up to several dol- 

 lars per hundred. An island wide organiza- 

 tion could control the markets and the 

 prices. — H. A. Van Hermann in Modern 

 Cuba. 



lo Lucha believes that with an equitable 

 tariff agreement the citrus fruit industry 

 of Cuba will become a most important one, 

 and if the next ten years show a develop- 

 n^eiit in proportion to the last ten years 



