THE FUTURE OF THE ISLAND 139 



acquaintance with the island, and who " has entire faith in 

 an ultimate bright future for Spain and Cuba, when some 

 Western light shall shine through the present darkness, and 

 the people have half a chance to educate their children and 

 take some real part in the government of their country." 



The various directions in which industrial and engineer- 

 ing works may be carried out may be generally stated to 

 be the same as those which present themselves in any new 

 country, in spite of the fact that Cuba is the oldest settle- 

 ment in America. The opportunity for the building of com- 

 mon roads is larger, and in most places there is an abundance 

 of stone for the purpose. The roads cross rivers, etc., by 

 fords, which are impassable soon after the rains set in, and, 

 although the streams are neither large nor very numerous, 

 the necessity for bridges is great. A glance at the map 

 will show that the great bulk of the island to the east of 

 Santa ( Jlara is yet untouched. Part of the region is still 

 unexplored. In the cultivation of the cane, both in the 

 preparing of the land and in the planting and harvesting, 

 there is a crying need of machinery. The planting of the 

 cane is nearly all done by hand. There are a few cane- 

 planting machines, but little is known about them. The 

 weeding is done by hand in the majority of instances, and 

 finally the harvesting is done with a knife ; and a laborious 

 business it is. It takes five hundred men per day to cut 

 the cane alone on a large estate, to say nothing of loading, 

 and teaming to the railroad-tracks ; and the man who can 

 successfully solve the problem of a cane-harvester has a 

 large field to work in. 



The supplying of the sugar-houses with new machinery 

 has been an enormous business in the last decade. It has 

 been in the hands of the Scotch, French, and American 

 machine-houses mostly, as the German and other Conti- 

 nental houses have fought shy of the long credits demanded, 

 the insufficient security, and the general lack of faith in 

 Cuban business affairs. There can be no doubt that much 

 new business in this direction must spring up with the 



