Birth of United Fruit Company

From Conquest of the Tropics by Frederick Upham Adams

Chapter VI – Birth of the United Fruit Company

Only those who have lived in the tropic and are familiar with the hazards which confront the cultivation and marketing of its fruits can readily understand the motives which impelled a union of the interests of the Boston Fruit Company and those headed by Minor C. Keith.  It was not a move calculated to control competition or to rear a monopoly; it was the business step imperatively required to secure the permanency of the banana industry. 

 In 1898, the year preceding the organization of the United Fruit Company, the total importation of bananas from the American tropics did not exceed 12,000,000 bunches, or about one-fourth of those imported in 1913.  It is doubtful if any food product has shown a similar increase in any equal period in the world’s history.  The sole reason why the year 1913 did not exceed the figure of 50,000,000 bunches of imported bananas is that no more were available for shipment to the consuming sections of the United States and Europe.

 The problem in 1898 was to produce more bananas for a steadily mounting popular demand. That is the problem to-day.  The field was open to all comers in 1898.  It is open to all who care to enter it to-day.  Under such conditions the presumption that a banana monopoly ever existed, now exists, or is possible cannot be entertained by those who understand the first rudiment of the laws of business and commerce.

At the time of the organization of the United Fruit Company the following firms, corporations, and persons were engaged in importing bananas into the United States:

  •  Boston Fruit Company,
  • Tropical Trading and Transport Company, Ltd.,
  • Columbian Land Company, Ltd.,
  • Snyder Banana Company,
  • J.D. hart Company,
  • Orr & Laubenheimer Company, Ltd.,
  • Camors, McConnell & Company,
  • New Orleans Belize Royal Mail & Central American Steamship Company,
  • W.W. & C.R. Noyes,
  • John E. Kerr & Company,
  • J.H. Seward Importing & Steamship Company,
  • Aspinwall Fruit Company,
  • West Indian Fruit Company,
  • Monumental Trading Company,
  • West India Trading Company,
  • Henry Bayer & Son,
  • Camors-Weinberger Banana Company, Ltd.,
  • J.B. Cefalu & Brother,
  • S. Oteri,
  • The Bluefields Steamship Company, Ltd.,
  • W.L. Rathbun & Company.

There were undoubtedly other firms and individuals engaged in a small scale in the banana business, but the above list includes all those of consequence in the trade.  The first four were merged into the United Fruit Company.  Some of the others have retired, others have been absorbed by the companies which now compete with the United Fruit Company, but not a firm, corporation, or individual engaged in the banana business at the time of the incorporation of the united Fruit Company has failed because of the operations of that company.

Prior to 1899, the year of the formation of the United Fruit Company, there had been organized, according to the best available information, not less than 114 companies or firms which engaged in the importation of bananas to the United States.  Of this large list—as has been stated—only twenty-two of any consequence were still in existence when the United Fruit Company was formed.

Most of these banana companies were inadequately financed, and most of them were under the management of men who had no practical knowledge of the banana industry.  Few had been in business for as long a period as ten years, and most of them handled insignificant quantities of bananas.  With monotonous regularity these mushroom banana companies would spring into being, struggle along for a short time, and then drop out of existence, leaving behind no assets for their stockholders.

Such experimental banana companies still are founded, most of them with capital stock ranging from $50,000 to $200,000.  These amounts of money are sufficient to finance a banana plantation, but it is as idle to expect to become a producer, importer, and national distributor of bananas with such capital as it would be to expect to compete successfully with the Western Union and the Postal Telegraph with a new company thus financed.

When the banana industry was in its infancy there was a possibility of temporary success even with the most crude and wasteful of methods.  The cargoes were small, and it was not difficult to dispose of the fruit over the ship’s sides a few bunches at a time.  The market was largely confined to the port in which the ship docked, the prices were high, and the consumption small.

The fruit was generally secured by purchase from the native tropical planters, sometimes by contract, but more often in the open market.  Few companies, even in the late 90’s, grew any bananas on their own plantations, and when they did, these formed merely the nuclei of their cargoes, the remainder being secured by purchase.  Practically all of the importers of this early period looked to one source of supply and had only one port of entry in the United States.  In some instances, the importer simply chartered space on steamers and stored it with bananas; the more ambitious importers chartered ships, but these were of low speed and had a capacity for a comparatively small number of stem of bananas.

Arriving in the United States, the fruit was unloaded by hand, and in the early days the prospective purchasers would assemble on the wharves to secure their supplies.  Naturally, they chose their own fruit, buying as they did only a few bunches at a time. In later years, however, the importers adopted the custom of selling the fruit by “steamer run,” viz: as it came out of the steamer, declining to permit the buyer to pick out the best bunches.  Some importers had stores and ripening rooms where they could keep a portion of their fruit and sell it gradually.  What was left, after every possible local demand had been satisfied, was then shipped to various interior points usually consigned to some broker.  Sometimes the fruit was shipped a long distance, from New Orleans to Chicago, but it was not often necessary to assume such risks.

The importers knew little concerning the business as a whole; they were not familiar with the interior markets or how to reach them, and the industry in all of its departments was conducted in a wasteful and haphazard manner, the public paying their share of these blunders in high prices for bananas, and the importer paying their share in losses which generally ended in bankruptcy.

New Orleans took the first step for a business organization designed to secure a proper distribution of bananas in 1896, three years prior to the formation of the United Fruit Company.  In this year, four of the New Orleans companies formed the New Orleans Importing Company, a selling organization intended to dispose of the fruit imported by its members.  The New Orleans experiment was successful while it lasted, but jealousies and dissensions among the heads of the four companies requiring it services caused its dissolution after a few months.

 Another effort in the same direction was made early in 1899 when similar problems resulted in the formation of the Southern Banana Exchange.  Like its predecessor, it worked satisfactorily, but its usefulness was cut short in three or four months by the inability of its members to get along without friction.

The truth of the matter is, that the banana industry, prior to the formation of the United Fruit Company, had made sorry progress compared with other importing enterprises.  The Boston Fruit Company and those concerns headed by Mr. Keith were the most progressive in their methods, but they were handicapped by conditions which will now be considered.

The Boston Fruit Company and the Keith interest were the leading factors in the banana industry.  The Boston Fruit Company derived its product solely from the West Indies and confined its market to the Atlantic coast and to the northern sections of the interior of the United States.  The Keith interests cultivated bananas in Central America and Colombia and shipped them mainly to New Orleans and other Gulf ports, but lacked the facilities for reaching far into the southern and western territory naturally tributary to these shipping and railroad termini.  The competition between the Boston Fruit Company and the Keith interests, nor was there any prospect that their activities would conflict.

Neither of these interest had the capital with which to take advantage of obvious opportunities, but the time had arrived when moneyed men were willing to listen to the possibilities of the banana as an investment.  They still declined to class it as a conservative investment, and, such is the proverbial timidity of capital, it is not so considered to-day, as stock quotations eloquently testify.  Your cautious man of money seek investments which he can look at and study personally from day to day, the securities of which he can convert into cash almost at a moment’s notice, and the tropics—well, the tropics are far from New York and Boston.

Hence a tropical investment must prove and double prove itself before the average man of money will consider it, and then the lure must be attractive, in dividend per cents.  But in the years which had passed since Carl B. Franc, Captain Lorenzo D. Baker, Andrew W. Preston, Minor C. Keith, and others faced the hardships and risks of the pioneer, certain things had been proved beyond possibility of doubt.

The most favorable thing proved by these pioneers was that the people of the United States liked bananas and would eat them in unlimited quantities if offered at prices which would compete with such home fruits as apples, peaches, pears, and oranges.  The second favorable consideration proved was that bananas could be grown cheaply and in large quantities in certain tropical sections, provided weather condition continued favorable.

The disturbing and discouraging element was found in the fact that a flood, drought, or high wind would destroy a crop in a given section and eliminate it as a source of production for a year or more.  Capital pays more attention to one flaw in a new proposition than it does to ten of its glowing promises.  Possibly this is the reason why we have such a thing as capital.  In any event, capital in 1898 declined to enthuse over an enterprise which could not prove its ability to supply at all times the commodity in which a large investment was to be made.

There was ample justification for this attitude.  The Boston Fruit Company had learned by grim and expensive experience that the tropics could frown as well as smile.  Hurricanes leveled some of their best plantations in Jamaica.  The replanted tracts would later be swept away by roaring floods.  Drought shriveled the fronds of the banana plants in Cuba and San Domingo.  Nor was nature the only one strike blows.  Warring factions waged revolutions and counter-revolutions in Cuba and San Domingo.  There was no stability of governments, no assurance that the field workers of to-day would not follow some ambitious “general” on the morrow in the quest of “liberty” or loot.  The Boston Fruit Company did not have a source of banana supply which it could insure against sweeping disaster without warning.  Under the most favorable circumstances its total supply was insufficient to meet the rapidly increasing demand, and any curtailment meant not only money losses but damaged prestige as well.

The enterprises headed by Mr. Keith faced the same menace.  Terrific floods in Costa Rica and Panama Swept away the railroad tracks and bridges and overwhelmed the loaded plants in large districts.  In one year a protracted drought in the Santa Marta district of Colombia practically killed all the plantations.  Revolutions in some of the Central American republics played their part in determining whether crops would be harvested or not.

But luck, chance, or the law of average decreed that these disasters to the banana crops should be local, and that a large portion in the American tropics would survive in any year despite the rage of the elements and the fury of warring political factions.  The obvious remedy of a banana importing concern was to provide for sources of supply in many district scattered all over the America tropics.  This expedient was so obvious and so imperative that it should have suggested itself and been adopted years prior to the formation of the United Fruit company.  It was the natural, reasonable, sensible, and logical thing to do.

The consolidation of the interests of the Boston Fruit Company and the companies controlled by Minor C. Keith was brought about, as a matter of fact, not as the result of a carefully considered plan, but through a financial disaster which seriously threatened Mr. Keith.  In the latter part of 1898 the firm of Hoadley & Company failed.  Mr. Keith had drawn bills against this company to the amount of $1,500,000.  He was conducting extensive operations in many tropical sections, and this failure was serious blow.  For Year Mr. Keith had consigned his bananas to Hoadley & Company, through the port of New Orleans.  There was consequent shattering of his plans for the marketing of bananas.

I told in a former chapter of the time when 1,500 Jamaica negroes worked nine months for Mr. Keith without wages owing to the inability of the Government of Costa Rica to pay money due for railroad construction.  He failing of Hoadley & Company and the financial crippling of Mr. Keith gave Costa Rica a chance to prove that republics are not always ungrateful.  This crisis found Mr. Keith obligated to Costa Rica, which held his drafts in large amounts, but this made no difference.  The government officials of that republic promptly offered to lend Mr. Keith any reasonable amount of money to tide him over his difficulties, and he accepted their aid.  The Costa Rican banks and others cooperated, and two weeks after the failure Mr. Keith arrived in New York City and made a settlement in full with his creditors.

Mr. Keith, on account of the failure of his agents, was compelled to make new arrangements for the sale of his fruit and entered into negotiations with Andrew W. Preston, president of the Boston Fruit Company.  The latter organization had just formed the Fruit Dispatch Company for the purpose of expediting and extending the distribution and sale of bananas.  An arrangement was made by which a portion of the Mr. Keith’s product would be handled by the Boston Fruit Company or its branches, and it was in this manner that Mr. Preston and Mr. Keith came in closer business contact.  It has been explained that Mr. Keith took up banana cultivation and transportation as a means to supply freight for his tropical railroads, but in the years which had passed since 1871 his banana enterprises had progressed to a stage which demanded a large share of his time.  Instead of being a secondary interest, as mr. Keith had intended it to be, his banana enterprises threatened to divert his whole time from the railroad projects on which he had set his ambition.

Andrew W. Preston, president and directing spirit of the Boston Fruit Company and its branches, was anxious to secure new sources of banana supply, and was fully aware that some of these should come from Central and South America.

Under such conditions it was easy to initiate and conclude negotiations looking to the lawful consolidation of the properties of these two non-competitive groups of banana companies.  Mr. Preston, Mr. Keith, and their associates were also influenced by a hope that such an amalgamation would create an enterprise sufficiently conservative and devoid of risks to attract the outside capital required to place the banana business on a more secure financial foundation.

It had been obvious of years that the banana industry was one which must be conducted on a large scale.  It could be gambled in on a small scale, but there is a wide difference between rearing a conservative banana enterprise and taking a chance on the luck of a ship and a local banana plantation.  Most agricultural products can be raised on a small scale.  Wheat, corn, oats, barley, garden truck, apples, pears, grapes, and scores of other food and fruit products can be brought from the soil by individual of limited means, who can compete successfully with those who cultivate much larger tracts.  Cotton is in the same class, but sugar and bananas are in an entirely different class.

Sugar and bananas can be produced on a small scale, but their economical production positively demands vast acreage and vast expenditures for the complicated equipment of handling and transportation.  It was a demonstrated fact in 1899 that no banana enterprise could hope for permanent success unless financially equipped to insure a widely scattered source of supply, adequate means of transportation, and, finally, methods of distribution which would place bananas within speedy reach of all of the consuming centres in the United States.

Investors had never been offered a chance in a banana enterprise of this character.  Would it prove attractive?  Mr. Keith, Mr. Preston, and their associates discussed the question of a consolidation of interest and gave careful consideration to the various details.  It was found possible to enlist financial support for the organization of a properly equipped banana enterprise.  The United Fruit Company was not, strictly speaking, a consolidation of the interest of the northern and southern groups headed respectively by Andrew W. Preston and Minor C. Keith.  The United Fruit Company was incorporated on March 30, 1899, under the laws of New Jersey, as a single, individual corporation, with an authorized capital of $20,000,000.  Shortly thereafter, $1,650,000 was subscribed and paid for in cash at par, and during the first year $11,230,000 in stock was subscribed.  It was authorized under its charter to acquire, by purchase or development, banan and other properties and to conduct them in the manner provided by law.

Under this charter the United Fruit Company, on April I, 1899, offered to purchase all of the property, business, and shares of the Boston Fruit Company and of its associated companies of $5,200,200 cash.  This offer was later accepted and resulted in the acquisition by the United Fruit Company of the assets of the Boston Fruit Company, and its seven branch companies, viz: the American Fruit Company, Banes Fruit Company, Buckman Fruit Company, Dominican Fruit Company, Quaker City Fruit Company, and Sama Fruit Company, also the Fruit Dispatch Company.

These seven branches of the Boston Fruit Company were organized from time to time for business convenience, and were owned outright or largely controlled by the parent company.  This system of branch companies was the conventional expedient of the time and was not a subject of comment or criticism.

The Banes Fruit Company, Dominican Fruit Company, and Sama Fruit Company were companies organized and owned by the Boston Fruit Company, and were operated solely for the purpose of owning plantations and growing bananas in Cuba and San Domingo.  They were strictly agricultural propositions.   The American Fruit Company, Buckman Fruit Company, and Quaker City Fruit Company were organized by the Boston Fruit Company to transport bananas from Cuba, San Domingo, and Jamaica to the United States, and to sell them in different points in the northern and northeaster sections of the country.  The Boston Fruit Company imported bananas into the port of Boston;  the American Fruit Company imported bananas to New York City, the Quaker City Fruit Company to Philadelphia, and the Buckman Fruit Company to  Baltimore.  The Boston Fruit Company furnished to the American, Quaker City, and Buckman companies all of the bananas imported and sold by them.  In other words, all of these companies were merely branches of the Boston Fruit Company.

The Fruit Dispatch Company was organized and wholly owned by the Boston Fruit Company, and was a selling corporation only.  It still maintains a separate corporate existence, but is owned outright by the United Fruit Company.

To all intents and purposed the Boston Fruit Company and the branches organized and owned by it were one corporation in 1899.  The branches were organized and maintained for purposed of convenience and for conventional business reasons, mainly local.  It was within the power and the right of the Boston Fruit Company to absorb its branches at any time, or to make such other disposition of them as it saw fit.  Despite this obvious fact, it has been alleged that the United Fruit Company acquired these branch companies because they were competitive with the Boston Fruit Company—an absurd and utterly unfounded statement.  The source of banana supply did not extend south of Jamaica and there was no port of entry south of Baltimore.  So much for the northern or Boston group.

On April 5, 1899, the United Fruit Company purchased from Minor C. Keith and his associates all of the properties owned by the Tropical Trading and Transport Company, Ltd., the Colombian Land Company, Ltd., and the Snyder Banana Company, all three of which had been under the management and control of Mr. Keith.  These three properties were acquired for about $4,000,000.  The Colombian Land Company, Ltd., and the Tropical Trading and Transport Company, Ltd., were corporation whose operations were restricted solely to the cultivation of banana plantations in Colombia and Costa Rica respectively.  The Snyder Banana

Company owned plantations in Panama and chartered a few steamers which carried its fruit and other freight from Bocas del Toro to New Orleans and Mobile.  The width of the Caribbean separated this group from the one to which it had been united, and the ports of entry and distribution were no nearer than Baltimore and Mobile.

Such is the plain history of the organization of the United Fruit Company.  Its legal incorporation meant more than the birth of a corporation.  (It was the actual birth of the banana industry.)  It had taken thirty-four years of blunders, experiments, disasters, partial successes and assumption of the innumerable risks and hardships incident to a struggle with the virgin tropics to create an enterprise fit to take advantage of the experience which had so dearly been bought.  The great experiment of whether bananas could be produced and handled on a vastly larger scale had yet to be made, and there were many who did not hesitate to predict that the ambitions plans of the newly organized United Fruit Company would end in overwhelming failure.

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THE answer to the question, What is fortune has never been, and probably never will be, satisfactorily made. What may be a fortune for one bears but small proportion to the colossal possessions of another. The scores or hundreds of thousands admired and envied as a fortune in most of our communities [...] Read more →

Traditional JuJutsu Health, Strength and Combat Tricks

Jujitsu training 1920 in Japanese agricultural school.

CHAPTER V

THE VALUE OF EVEN TEMPER IN ATHLETICS—SOME OF THE FEATS THAT REQUIRE GOOD NATURE

In the writer’s opinion it becomes necessary to make at this point some suggestions relative to a very important part of the training in jiu-jitsu. [...] Read more →

The Standard Navy Cutter and a Whale Boat Design

Dec. 24, 1898 Forest and Stream Pg. 513-514

The Standard Navy Boats.

Above we find,

The accompanying illustrations show further details of the standard navy boats, the lines of which appeared last week. In all of these boats, as stated previously, the quality of speed has been given [...] Read more →

Watch Fraud on eBay

EBAY’S FRAUD PROBLEM IS GETTING WORSE

EBay has had a problem with fraudulent sellers since its inception back in 1995. Some aspects of the platform have improved with algorithms and automation, but others such as customer service and fraud have gotten worse. Small sellers have definitely been hurt by eBay’s [...] Read more →

The Hunt Saboteur

The Hunt Saboteur is a national disgrace barking out loud, black mask on her face get those dogs off, get them off she did yell until a swift kick from me mare her voice it did quell and sent the Hunt Saboteur scurrying up vale to the full cry of hounds drowning out her [...] Read more →

The Legacy of Felix de Weldon

Felix Weihs de Weldon, age 96, died broke in the year 2003 after successive bankruptcies and accumulating $4 million dollars worth of debt. Most of the debt was related to the high cost of love for a wife living with Alzheimer’s. Health care costs to maintain his first wife, Margot, ran $500 per [...] Read more →

Indian Mode of Hunting – Beaver

Jul. 30, 1898 Forest and Stream Pg. 87

Indian Mode of Hunting.

I.—Beaver.

Wa-sa-Kejic came over to the post early one October, and said his boy had cut his foot, and that he had no one to steer his canoe on a proposed beaver hunt. Now [...] Read more →

What is the Meaning of the Term Thorough-bred Fox-hound

Reprint from the Sportsman Cabinet and Town & Country Magazine, Vol.1, Number 1, November 1832.

MR. Editor,

Will you allow me to inquire, through the medium of your pages, the correct meaning of the term thorough-bred fox-hound? I am very well aware, that the expression is in common [...] Read more →

A General Process for Making Wine

A General Process for Making Wine.

Gathering the Fruit Picking the Fruit Bruising the Fruit Vatting the Fruit Vinous Fermentation Drawing the Must Pressing the Must Casking the Must Spirituous Fermentation Racking the Wine Bottling and Corking the Wine Drinking the Wine

GATHERING THE FRUIT.

It is of considerable consequence [...] Read more →

U.S. Coast Guard Radio Information for Boaters

VHF Marifoon Sailor RT144, by S.J. de Waard

RADIO INFORMATION FOR BOATERS

Effective 01 August, 2013, the U. S. Coast Guard terminated its radio guard of the international voice distress, safety and calling frequency 2182 kHz and the international digital selective calling (DSC) distress and safety frequency 2187.5 kHz. Additionally, [...] Read more →

Country Cabbage and Pea Soup

Add the following ingredients to a four or six quart crock pot, salt & pepper to taste keeping in mind that salt pork is just that, cover with water and cook on high till it boils, then cut back to low for four or five hours. A slow cooker works well, I [...] Read more →

Of the Room and Furniture

Crewe Hall Dining Room

 

THE transient tenure that most of us have in our dwellings, and the absorbing nature of the struggle that most of us have to make to win the necessary provisions of life, prevent our encouraging the manufacture of well-wrought furniture.

We mean to outgrow [...] Read more →

The First Greek Book by John Williams White

Click here to read The First Greek Book by John Williams White

The First Greek Book - 15.7MB

IN MEMORIAM

JOHN WILLIAMS WHITE

The death, on May 9, of John Williams White, professor of Greek in Harvard University, touches a large number of classical [...] Read more →

Money Saving Recipe for Gold Leaf Sizing

Artisans world-wide spend a fortune on commercial brand oil-based gold leaf sizing. The most popular brands include Luco, Dux, and L.A. Gold Leaf. Pricing for quart size containers range from $35 to $55 depending upon retailer pricing.

Fast drying sizing sets up in 2-4 hours depending upon environmental conditions, humidity [...] Read more →

Chinese 9 Course Dinner

The following recipes form the most popular items in a nine-course dinner program:

BIRD’S NEST SOUP

Soak one pound bird’s nest in cold water overnight. Drain the cold water and cook in boiling water. Drain again. Do this twice. Clean the bird’s nest. Be sure [...] Read more →

Fly Casting Instructions

It is a pity that the traditions and literature in praise of fly fishing have unconsciously hampered instead of expanded this graceful, effective sport. Many a sportsman has been anxious to share its joys, but appalled by the rapture of expression in describing its countless thrills and niceties he has been literally [...] Read more →

List of the 60 Franklin Library Signed Limited Editions

The following highly collectible Franklin Library Signed Editions were published between 1977 and 1982. They are all fully leather bound with beautiful covers and contain gorgeous and rich silk moire endpapers. Signatures are protected by unattached tissue inserts.

The values listed are average prices that were sought by [...] Read more →

The Preparation of Marketable Vinegar

It is unnecessary to point out that low-grade fruit may often be used to advantage in the preparation of vinegar. This has always been true in the case of apples and may be true with other fruit, especially grapes. The use of grapes for wine making is an outlet which [...] Read more →

The Billesden Coplow Run

*note – Billesdon and Billesden have both been used to name the hunt.

BILLESDEN COPLOW POEM

[From “Reminiscences of the late Thomas Assheton Smith, Esq”]

The run celebrated in the following verses took place on the 24th of February, 1800, when Mr. Meynell hunted Leicestershire, and has since been [...] Read more →

King Lear

Edwin Austin Abbey. King Lear, Act I, Scene I (Cordelia’s Farewell) The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Dates: 1897-1898 Dimensions: Height: 137.8 cm (54.25 in.), Width: 323.2 cm (127.24 in.) Medium: Painting – oil on canvas

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The Effect of Magnetic Fields on Wound Healing

The Effect of Magnetic Fields on Wound Healing Experimental Study and Review of the Literature

Steven L. Henry, MD, Matthew J. Concannon, MD, and Gloria J. Yee, MD Division of Plastic Surgery, University of Missouri Hospital & Clinics, Columbia, MO Published July 25, 2008

Objective: Magnets [...] Read more →

Naval Stores – Distilling Turpentine

Chipping a Turpentine Tree

DISTILLING TURPENTINE One of the Most Important Industries of the State of Georgia Injuring the Magnificent Trees Spirits, Resin, Tar, Pitch, and Crude Turpentine all from the Long Leaved Pine – “Naval Stores” So Called.

Dublin, Ga., May 8. – One of the most important industries [...] Read more →

Arsenic and Old Lace

What is follows is an historical article that appeared in The Hartford Courant in 1916 about the arsenic murders carried out by Mrs. Archer-Gilligan. This story is the basis for the 1944 Hollywood film “Arsenic and Old Lace” starring Cary Grant and Priscilla Lane and directed by Frank Capra. The [...] Read more →

AB Bookman’s 1948 Guide to Describing Conditions

AB Bookman’s 1948 Guide to Describing Conditions:

As New is self-explanatory. It means that the book is in the state that it should have been in when it left the publisher. This is the equivalent of Mint condition in numismatics. Fine (F or FN) is As New but allowing for the normal effects of [...] Read more →

Cleaner for Gilt Picture Frames

Cleaner for Gilt Frames.

Calcium hypochlorite…………..7 oz. Sodium bicarbonate……………7 oz. Sodium chloride………………. 2 oz. Distilled water…………………12 oz.

 

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Bess of Hardwick: Four Times a Lady

Bess of Harwick

Four times the nuptial bed she warm’d, And every time so well perform’d, That when death spoil’d each husband’s billing, He left the widow every shilling. Fond was the dame, but not dejected; Five stately mansions she erected With more than royal pomp, to vary The prison of her captive When [...] Read more →

Mudlark Regulations in the U.K.

Mudlarks of London

Mudlarking along the Thames River foreshore is controlled by the Port of London Authority.

According to the Port of London website, two type of permits are issued for those wishing to conduct metal detecting, digging, or searching activities.

Standard – allows digging to a depth of 7.5 [...] Read more →

Producing and Harvesting Tobacco Seed

THE FIRST step in producing a satisfactory crop of tobacco is to use good seed that is true to type. The grower often can save his own seed to advantage, if he wants to.

Before topping is done, he should go over the tobacco field carefully to pick [...] Read more →

Birth of United Fruit Company

From Conquest of the Tropics by Frederick Upham Adams

Chapter VI – Birth of the United Fruit Company

Only those who have lived in the tropic and are familiar with the hazards which confront the cultivation and marketing of its fruits can readily understand [...] Read more →

Abingdon, Berkshire in the Year of 1880

St.Helen’s on the Thames, photo by Momit

 

From a Dictionary of the Thames from Oxford to the Nore. 1880 by Charles Dickens

Abingdon, Berkshire, on the right bank, from London 103 3/4miles, from Oxford 7 3/4 miles. A station on the Great Western Railway, from Paddington 60 miles. The time occupied [...] Read more →

Valentine Poetry from the Cotswold Explorer

 

There is nothing more delightful than a great poetry reading to warm ones heart on a cold winter night fireside. Today is one of the coldest Valentine’s days on record, thus, nothing could be better than listening to the resonant voice of Robin Shuckbrugh, The Cotswold [...] Read more →

The First Christian Man Cremated in America

Laurens’ portrait as painted during his time spent imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was kept for over a year after being captured at sea while serving as the United States minister to the Netherlands during the Revolutionary War.

The first Christian white man to be cremated in America was [...] Read more →

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Officers and men of the 13th Light Dragoons, British Army, Crimea. Rostrum photograph of photographer’s original print, uncropped and without color correction. Survivors of the Charge.

Half a league, half a league, Half a league onward, All in the valley of Death Rode the six hundred. “Forward, the Light Brigade! Charge for the [...] Read more →

Proper Book Handling and Cleaning

Book Conservators, Mitchell Building, State Library of New South Wales, 29.10.1943, Pix Magazine

The following is taken verbatim from a document that appeared several years ago in the Maine State Archives. It seems to have been removed from their website. I happened to have made a physical copy of it at the [...] Read more →

Historical Uses of Arsenic

The arsenicals (compounds which contain the heavy metal element arsenic, As) have a long history of use in man – with both benevolent and malevolent intent. The name ‘arsenic’ is derived from the Greek word ‘arsenikon’ which means ‘potent'”. As early as 2000 BC, arsenic trioxide, obtained from smelting copper, was used [...] Read more →

Banana Propagation

Banana Propagation

Reprinted from the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA.org)

The traditional means of obtaining banana planting material (“seed”) is to acquire suckers from one’s own banana garden, from a neighbor, or from a more distant source. This method served to spread common varieties around the world and to multiply them [...] Read more →

Coffee & Cigarettes

Aw, the good old days, meet in the coffee shop with a few friends, click open the Zippo, inhale a glorious nosegay of lighter fluid, fresh roasted coffee and a Marlboro cigarette….

A Meta-analysis of Coffee Drinking, Cigarette Smoking, and the Risk of Parkinson’s Disease

We conducted a [...] Read more →

Harry Houdini Investigates the Spirit World

The magician delighted in exposing spiritualists as con men and frauds.

By EDMUND WILSON June 24, 1925

Houdini is a short strong stocky man with small feet and a very large head. Seen from the stage, his figure, with its short legs and its pugilist’s proportions, is less impressive than at close [...] Read more →

Mrs. Beeton’s Poultry & Game – Choosing Poultry

To Choose Poultry.

When fresh, the eyes should be clear and not sunken, the feet limp and pliable, stiff dry feet being a sure indication that the bird has not been recently killed; the flesh should be firm and thick and if the bird is plucked there should be no [...] Read more →

Platform of the American Institute of Banking in 1919

Resolution adapted at the New Orleans Convention of the American Institute of Banking, October 9, 1919:

“Ours is an educational association organized for the benefit of the banking fraternity of the country and within our membership may be found on an equal basis both employees and employers; [...] Read more →

British Craftsmanship is Alive and Well

The Queen Elizabeth Trust, or QEST, is an organisation dedicated to the promotion of British craftsmanship through the funding of scholarships and educational endeavours to include apprenticeships, trade schools, and traditional university classwork. The work of QEST is instrumental in keeping alive age old arts and crafts such as masonry, glassblowing, shoemaking, [...] Read more →

Fruits of the Empire: Licorice Root and Juice

Liquorice, the roots of Glycirrhiza Glabra, a perennial plant, a native of the south of Europe, but cultivated to some extent in England, particularly at Mitcham, in Surrey.

Its root, which is its only valuable part, is long, fibrous, of a yellow colour, and when fresh, very juicy. [...] Read more →

The American Museum in Britain – From Florida to Bath

Hernando de Soto (c1496-1542) Spanish explorer and his men torturing natives of Florida in his determination to find gold. Hand-coloured engraving. John Judkyn Memorial Collection, Freshford Manor, Bath

The print above depicts Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto and his band of conquistadors torturing Florida natives in order to extract information on where [...] Read more →

Peach Brandy

PEACH BRANDY

2 gallons + 3 quarts boiled water 3 qts. peaches, extremely ripe 3 lemons, cut into sections 2 sm. pkgs. yeast 10 lbs. sugar 4 lbs. dark raisins

Place peaches, lemons and sugar in crock. Dissolve yeast in water (must NOT be to hot). Stir thoroughly. Stir daily for 7 days. Keep [...] Read more →

The Snipe

THE SNIPE, from the Shooter’s Guide by B. Thomas – 1811

AFTER having given a particular description of the woodcock, it will only. be necessary to observe, that the plumage and shape of the snipe is much the same ; and indeed its habits and manners sets bear a great [...] Read more →

Catholic Religious Orders

Saint Francis of Assisi, founder of the mendicant Order of Friars Minor, as painted by El Greco.

Catholic religious order

Catholic religious orders are one of two types of religious institutes (‘Religious Institutes’, cf. canons 573–746), the major form of consecrated life in the Roman Catholic Church. They are organizations of laity [...] Read more →

Proper Wines to Serve with Food

Foie gras with Sauternes, Photo by Laurent Espitallier

As an Appetizer

Pale dry Sherry, with or without bitters, chilled or not. Plain or mixed Vermouth, with or without bitters. A dry cocktail.

With Oysters, Clams or Caviar

A dry flinty wine such as Chablis, Moselle, Champagne. Home Top of [...] Read more →

Chantry Chapels

William Wyggeston’s chantry house, built around 1511, in Leicester: The building housed two priests, who served at a chantry chapel in the nearby St Mary de Castro church. It was sold as a private dwelling after the dissolution of the chantries.

A Privately Built Chapel

Chantry, chapel, generally within [...] Read more →

Clairvoyance – Methods of Development

CLAIRVOYANCE

by C. W. Leadbeater

Adyar, Madras, India: Theosophical Pub. House

[1899]

CHAPTER IX – METHODS OF DEVELOPMENT

When a men becomes convinced of the reality of the valuable power of clairvoyance, his first question usually is, “How can [...] Read more →