Decorate the room with ferns, potted palms and other tropical plants, or
pictures of them. (Exact reproductions in paper or other material can
now be procured at small cost.) On one side of the room have one table
devoted to Puerto Rican curios; another to fruits and vegetables; and a
third to other products from the island. (Or fit up one end or corner as
a market place in San Juan or Ponce.)
Explain your plan for the entertainment to your groceryman and other
merchants most convenient to your school, and enlist their aid. They
will usually be willing to lend products imported from or native to the
country.
For a list of the fruits and vegetables to be exhibited in the market
place, see the list given when on a visit to the market place at San
Juan. (See p. 22).
On the product-tables arrange pieces of sugar cane, samples of raw,
loaf, granulated, and powdered sugar, and of molasses. If possible to
secure the stalks of sugar cane, have short lengths to be sold for
consumption--as in Puerto Rico. Near the table, tack up pictures of
sugar plantations and mills. Have the coffee-berry and beans, ground
coffee, cups of coffee prepared as a drink, and pictures of the tree,
fruit, and coffee plantations; also secure specimens of the fruit of the
cacao tree, a cake of solid chocolate, chocolate candy, and a cake
containing chocolate layers. Cups of cacao or chocolate may be prepared
as a drink. Have near pictures of the cacao tree and fruit.
Secure, if possible, samples of rice, allspice, nutmeg, mace, cinnamon,
pepper, cloves, ginger and vanilla; bottles of clove oil and bay rum;
packages of the annatto and logwood dyes; sponges, tortoise-shell combs,
and articles made of cedar, ebony, or mahogany, or pieces of these
woods.
The tables and booths in the market places should be presided over by
pupils dressed as Puerto Ricans, and venders should go about the room,
after the entertainment is over, with native wares to sell.
Among these venders will be the bread man, the milk man, the fruit and
vegetable man, the dulce seller, and the vender of ices.
These venders should, if possible, carry their wares as the Puerto
Ricans do.