20 



THE CUBA REVIEW 



THE ENTERPRISING AMERICANS 



CHANCES IN CUBA— SOME QUESTIONS ANSWERED 



(1) If an enterprising American with 

 little capital is going to Cuba has he better 

 opportunities along agricultural lines in the 

 country or in mercantile lines in the city? 



(2) Considering the best opjiortunities 

 for such a young man in Cuba, are they 

 better than existing opportunities in the 

 United States? 



My answer to the first question is that the 

 best opportunities for making money are in 

 mercantile lines. All kinds of business in 

 Cuba depends upon the price of sugar. At 

 two cents a pound (or $1.65 a hundred net), 

 very few make money and conditions are 

 dull, as at present. At three cents a pound 

 every one is making money and the island 

 is very prosperous. Even two and a half 

 cents means prosperity for Cuba, as practical- 

 ly all above the low price of the present 

 month would be increased profit. 



When the people are prosperous they are 

 very liberal spenders, having been taught 

 by the various revolutions that "it is useless 

 to save and have all one's savings taken 

 away during the next revolution." For this 

 very reason, however, the American in 

 mercantile business in Cuba should do a cash 

 business, insisting that his customers shall 

 "pay as they go." In short, I beheve that 

 there is an oj^portunity for active Americans 

 to develop the "chain" store idea in Cuba or 

 else open department stores in the larger 

 cities, such as Havana, Santiago, Matanzas, 

 Cienfuegos, Camaguey and Cardenas. 

 W^hether or not better opportunities along 

 these mercantile lines exist in Cuba than in 

 the United States, I do not know. 



Of course it is entirely possible for an 

 American to go to Cuba and purchase a tract 

 of land and lead the simple life, so called; 

 but in most cases this is not done by purchas- 

 ing virgin land of the Government at a very 

 low price, but rather by purchasing certain 

 semi-developed ranch land of some land com- 

 pany. This is what the American usually 

 does, paying for the land a comparatively 

 high price. In other words, the American 

 starts in by paying a profit to the land com- 

 pany about equal to any possible increase 

 in value for many years to come. Cuba has 

 an abundance of cheap food for hogs, luxuri- 

 ant grass for cattle, good water everywhere, 

 and a cUmate suited to both, and two crops 

 of corn, and in some parts three, can be grown 

 in a year. Coffee is a paying crop in the hilly 

 sections. Beans give two crops a year. 

 Potatoes may be grown profitably, and 

 poultry may be raised in unlimited quantity 

 at practically no cost. All these things and 

 many others have been neglected in Cuba, 

 partly because of the lack of means of trans- 

 portation, partly because of not knowing how, 

 but mainly because the production of sugar 

 and tobacco at the old time prices commanded 



every atom of available labor and made it 

 more advantageous to import foodstuffs than 

 to grow them at home, and therefore nothing 

 like general farming has ever prevailed in 

 the island and few people have followed the 

 changed conditions of recent years.- — G. L. 

 Carlson in South American, N. Y. 



CUBA A MOUNTAIN TOP 



Cuba and the other West Indian islands 

 are simply the tops of the highest mountains 

 of the range which happened to stick up 

 a little above the surface of the water. 

 Moreover, this is not so "little'' as one 

 might imagine, for there are very high peaks 

 in the Sierra Maestra range, with on peak 

 8,300 feet above the surface of the water. 

 When one considers the distance between 

 the bottom of the sea a few miles from the 

 coast and the top of Pico Turquino the 

 distance or the real height of this peak, 

 considering both that above and under 

 water, is almost staggering. 



With the exception of the northern part 

 of Maine, which today is practically un- 

 inhabited, Cuba is as large as the whole of 

 New England put together. The State of 

 Massachusetts has about one-fifth the area 

 of Cuba, Vermont and New Hampshire about 

 one-fourth, while little Rhode Island, with 

 its great mills and wealth, has only about 

 one-twentieth of Cuba's area. Hence, the 

 first point which impresses me on my trip 

 to Cuba is its size. I had not before realized 

 that it takes twenty-four hours by train 

 and forty-eight hours by steamer to go 

 from Havana to Santiago; in fact, its ex- 

 treme length is 730 miles, or nearly the dis- 

 tance between Albany and Chicago, the total 

 area being 44,000 square miles. 



In addition to the area, the other feature 

 which impresses me of Cuba, is the large 

 number of rivers and streams. It is true 

 that most of these rivers are small; but they 

 nevertheless are rivers which are of tre- 

 mendous value. In talking with a prominent 

 banker I was told that these rivei's number 

 about 250, the largest one being El Canto 

 and the Sagua la Grande. Otherwise water 

 is scarce. Although the total rainfall is 

 heavy, yet it comes all at once and thus far 

 no storage facilities exist. 



Although Cuba lies within the tropics the 

 climate is much modified by its insular con- 

 ditions. The heat is greatly tempered by 

 the trade winds which blow from the north- 

 west with but little variation throughout the 

 year. The days are cool in winter, and both 

 during the summer and winter the nights are 

 cool. The winter climate is mild and 

 agreeable, the weather being usually clear. 

 The highest average temperature recorded is 

 not higher than 84 degrees, the lowest about 



