Industrial Cuba : being a study of present commercial and industrial conditions with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the island for American capital, enterprise and labour . ,growing side by side with the mahogany; and on the Isleof Pines it is so plentiful as to have given the name to theisland. The province of Pinar del Rio (River of Pines) alsoreceives its name from the pines which are so numerousthere. Of the thirty varieties of palm, the first and foremost isthe Palma Real, or Royal Palm, called also the BlessedTree because of its manifold uses to man. This tree iscommon
Industrial Cuba : being a study of present commercial and industrial conditions with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the island for American capital, enterprise and labour . ,growing side by side with the mahogany; and on the Isleof Pines it is so plentiful as to have given the name to theisland. The province of Pinar del Rio (River of Pines) alsoreceives its name from the pines which are so numerousthere. Of the thirty varieties of palm, the first and foremost isthe Palma Real, or Royal Palm, called also the BlessedTree because of its manifold uses to man. This tree iscommon all over the Island, growing alike on hills and invalleys; but it is most frequent in the west, where the soilis generally richest and heaviest. It rises to a height offrom sixty to eighty feet, like a tall shaft of rough, greymarble, and from its top springs a great tuft of green peculiar growth does not make it especially valuable asa shade tree, but an avenue of palms is unequalled in its im-pressive beauty. Of its uses in other respects an inventorycan scarcely be made. Its roots are said to have medicinalvirtues. The stem of its leaves, or yagua, often six feet in 338. SAGO PALM. Timber and Fruit Trees 339 length, is like a thin board and can be used as a dinner plateby cutting it into shape; it may be folded like stiff paperwhen wet; and is bent into a catana, or basin, or a pot, inwhich food may be boiled, and there is sufficient salt in thewood to make the food palatable; it serves also as a basketfor carrying farm products; it is said a dozen catanas willproduce a pound of salt. The seed of the royal palm fur-nishes an excellent mast for fattening hogs. Goodweather-boarding is made from its trunk, and the lumbermay also be made into plain furniture; its leaves form theroofs of houses; fine canes are made from the hard outsideshell, which may be polished like metal; the bud of thetuft is a vegetable food much like cauliflower in taste, andis eaten raw and coo
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1890, bookidindustrialcubabe00port
