THE CUBA REVIE\A' And Rnlletin. 



The Wharf at Prestou ( Xipe Bay). 



the Mayari River. 8 miles away and pumped into 3 tanks each 30 feet high and 50 feet 

 in diameter, and from thence piped in*-o every house in the place. 



The plantation begins right at the village, and one year's work saw 14,000 acres 

 in cane and 12,000 acres partly cultivated. Next vear there will be something like 

 4 square miles of cane, or about 26,000' acres. Twenty-seven miles of finely ballasted 

 railroad, standard gauge, reaches all parts of the canefields. The rock ballast is 

 secured from a quarry on the property and a crusher and other machinery prepares 

 the material. A fine telephone system is in operation, and as Mr. Rigney said, as the 

 party stopped at the various fieldl stations for orders, "There is as much system here 

 as on the Pennsylvania Railroad." 



Loaded cane cars were in readiness .in various places and were quickly added to 

 the train on the return journey. The Company has 27 miles of track and is building 

 more, expecting shortly to complete a five-mile stretch toward the Cuba Railroad. It has 

 9 locomotives and 225 20-ton cane cars. The employees will number nearly 4,000 and the 

 pay roll is over $60,000 per month. It owns 2,500 head of oxen and i"6 mules. At 

 various places along the lines are small settlements of laborers who sleep in ham- 

 mocks under sheds. To maintain order among tlhese oftentimes turbulent workmen 

 the company has organized a police force of 30 men, who are continually in evidence. 

 A more than usually intractable individual is simply driven off the plantation and not 

 permitted to again enter the employ of the company. This is a greater punishment 

 than at first sight it would seem, for the company looks assiduously after the welfare 

 of its people. There are 204 buildings in Preston, and there is a school and hospital. 

 Laborers are charged 20 cents per month for hospital and school, and there are 200 

 children receiving instruction. 



There are red and black soils. The red grows cane the richest in juice. The 

 first cutting of a new crop is always low, but increases steadily up to five years, so 

 that far better results are looked for in the years to come. There are two churches 

 in Preston and' an hotel. The wharf has a depth of 20 feet at low tide and will be 

 built 400 feet farther out to get still deeper water. The houses occupied by the general 

 manager and his staff are fine, comfortable dwellings, and the office force is housed in 

 a large, airy building, roomy and convenient. 



All day long the loaded cars backed in, were relieved of their tons of cane by the 

 electric cranes, and every part of the structure teemed with life. Upstairs busy men 

 were watching the A^acuum pans, the vats, clarifiers and centrifugals, and down stairs 

 men were filling bags with the rich yellow sugar, and other men wheeling them away 

 to where electric hoisting machines stored them faster and better than men could do it. 

 As night came on the lights in the mill grew and spread until the ground shone round 

 about it, and still the activity and bustle went on unceasingly. Still the cars backed 

 in and the hoppers filled and the conveyors fed the mills and the river of cane juice 

 flowed and was boiled, crystallized, cleansed and emptied into the centrifugals, whidh 

 rapidly drove the molasses through the meshes and left the light brown crystals caked 

 up, 8 or 10 inches thick, against the sides of the wihirling pans. This, pried away, fell 

 through Chutes to the waiting men and bags below, and all through the night every 

 now and then a long drawn-out roar from one of the vacuum pans proclaimed another 

 boiling completed and another chapter of sugar production recorded. — F. J. R. 



