When the industry was first started, the fruit fetched one dollar per dozen in Habana, for export. The price has now fallen to about one-fourth of that figure on account of the increase in production of several countries, but even at present rates the pineapple can be raised in Cuba at a very fair profit. Little labor is involved in the cultivation, preparation for shipment is simple, and the yield is very great. One caballeria of land devoted to pineapples will cost about $4,000 to keep up during the five years that the plant bears. In that period it will give five crops of 18,000 dozen pineapples each. The last crop, however, will be too small for use except in the manufacture of preserves, and the full market price can only be counted on for the yield of the first three years. But, even at that, if 54,000 dozens of the fruit are marketed at twenty-five cents per dozen, there is a balance of $9,800, after paying expenses, in addition to the profit to be secured from the last two crops.
From this it would seem that pineapple culture is well worth while to the man of comparatively small capital, especially as the necessary ground can be bought in hundreds of places at less than ten dollars an acre.
It must be admitted, however, that practical growers scout these statements of profits, which are derived from official sources. The owners of pineapple plantations, Americans and Spaniards for the most part, declare that they are actually shipping at a loss. But for some inscrutable reason they continue to raise the fruit with a constantly increasing output.
One of the chief difficulties experienced by the investigator in Cuba lies in the proneness of all classes of planters to deny that there is any money in their business. They declare that the transportation companies and commission merchants are absorbing all the profits. On the other hand, a railroad manager will take paper and pencil and demonstrate convincingly that
PINEAPPLE FIELD.
the pineapple grower or the citrus fruit shipper is earning a very fair income.
It is probable that the Cuban growers may find the canning business profitable, as those of Hawaii have done. If the Government would lend its encouragement to such an enterprise by reducing or removing the high duty on sheet tin and cans, there is no doubt but that a cannery could be successfully conducted in western Cuba, where the greater part of the pineapple cultivation is carried on.