26 THE CUBA REVIEW 



from various planters, it is frequently necessary to weigh each cart, wagon or trailer 

 load, either before or as it is unloaded into the railroad car. Formerly this was done 

 exclusively by running the vehicle unto a platform scale where it was weighed, and 

 the weight noted by an attendant, but within a comparatively short period an auto- 

 matic weighing device has been attached to the hoist which raises the load, and by 

 this means the double operation is unnecessary, and the weight of the cane is noted 

 at the same time that it is lifted from the cart and placed in the railroad car. 



Thus not only have improvements been effected in what may be termed the land 

 haul or planter's haul of the cane, but in the railroads themselves improvements have 

 taken place through the increase in capacity of the present day car, as compared with 

 the small cars formerly used. This has also involved an increase in the capacity of 

 the engines used. A different character of engine also has lately appeared upon the 

 scene, necessity therefor being indicated by tremendous fires in the cane fields in the 

 past and at present in those localities where the ordinary railroad engine is used, 

 the difference consisting in that the new engine does not use fire for steam generation 

 purposes. It is our understanding that in steam generation these engines operate 

 on lines somewhat similar to those under which storage batteries work, with the 

 difference that the engine is filled at the mill with superheated water under pressure, 

 and as the pressure diminishes the latent heat in the water transforms it gradually 

 into steam, which is used as in the ordinary engine. An illustration of this machine 

 is given herewith. (No. 28). 



We have passed over the harvesting practice as observed here and in all other 

 cane producing countries wherein the cane is still cut by laborers, each employing a 

 cane knife varying in shape and character with each country, but usually consisting 

 of a heavy blade from 16 inches to 2 feet in length, usually with a slight crook in 

 the blade, designed to enable the cutter to more easily cut the stalks low or at the 

 surface of the ground, this being essential to the continuous production for a number 

 of years of good ratoon crops. Attempts have been made to perfect a machine that 

 will cut cane, but the great variety of conditions under which this is produced, of 

 character of land upon which cane is grown, and, consequently, of the condition of 

 the cane at the time of cutting, has rendered this a task which no one has yet been 

 able to accomplish. A machine has been made by which straight growing cane can 

 be handled with reasonable satisfaction, but when the cane, on account of heavy 

 growth, falls down and extends itself along the ground forming practically a tropical 

 jungle, as is the case in the fertile lands of Cuba, it has been found impossible to 

 handle it this way. Work has been continued on the improvement of these machines, 

 and the increasing scarcity of laborers to handle the ever-increasing areas planted, 

 will at some date bring about the desired result, as necessity will prove in this case 

 as in others the "mother of invention". 



We thus observe from what has been written that there has never been a time 

 when Cuba's sugar mills and her planters have had at their disposal the means for 

 the economical production and advantageous grinding of her cane that exist today, 

 and, therefore, with the probabilities of increasing improvement, especially in the 

 field of production, we can look forward with hope to the future. That the present 

 abnormal prices of sugar will continue cannot, of course, be believed, but with almost 

 the same security we can take for granted that the cost of production will gradually 

 lower, probably the fall in price and the lowering costs of production keeping pace 

 with each other in such a manner as to provide for equivalent profits under the new 

 prices that will prevail. Of course, this is conjecture, but it seems reasonable that 

 with the more economical devices at the control of the planter he will be able to lower 

 his production cost. There is no doubt that the majority of Cuba's sugar mills are 

 now in a position to produce sugar at much lower costs than formerly, but they are 

 also in a position to grind very much heavier harvests, and if when normal returns 

 again come, the profits to the planter should not prove satisfactory, our mills will find 



