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FIRE IN THE EARTH
that factory and assuring that it would become the largest explosives factory in the world.
Explosives are spectacular. They overshadow in our minds the other achievements of an organization that primarily was concerned with diamonds. Equally significant was the work of De Beers in launching fruit farms and cold-storage enterprises. These were undertaken toward the beginning of the century. One was the flotation of a fruit farm company, the outcome of Rhodes's wish to prove to the world that South Africa could produce fruit to compete with the best of any country; the other had to do with the smashing of a meat monopoly which, De Beers felt, was not operating to the public's—or De Beers's—interests.
In
1897 fourteen fruit farms were bought by Rhodes in the Western Province
and by 1905 the company was exporting 41,869 boxes of fruit. A jam
factory was built. Dried fruit was shipped out. By 1937 the fruit farms
covered 3000 morgen. Morgen is a land measure common in South Africa
and means about 2.17 acres.
In
the same year, 1897, cattle deaths from rinderpest caused a meat
scarcity of no small proportions, meat rising higher and a monopoly
coming into existence. De Beers, deciding to break the monopoly, built
cold storages of their own at Rhodes's suggestion and continued to
fight the monopoly to a standstill. In fact, the company extended its
activities to maize, oats, and wheat.
But
more important than fruit and cattle and maize and oats and wheat were
railroads. The opening of the diamond fields had an immense effect, of
course, on the railways of southern Africa. It was of vital importance
to De Beers that communications be established with Rhodesia. In
addition, there was an acute shortage of fuel in the Cape Colony, and
De Beers felt it necessary to build lines to tap the sources
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