THE CUBA REVIEW 



vs 



Entrance and Administration Building, Government Station, Santiago de las Vegas. 



ESTACION. CENTRAL AGRONOMICA 



GOVERNMENT EXPERIMENTAL STATION. SANTIAGO DE LAS VEGAS. CUBA 



This experimental station was founded in 1904 as a small farm, and has continued at its 

 present location since that time, increasing in size and importance, until today it is one of the 

 largest and most complete agricultural stations in the West Indies. 



The director in charge, Mr. J. T. Crawley, is an American, and he is assisted by a staff of 

 Americans and young Cubans who have had their training at Cornell University and other 

 Agricultural Schools in the United States. 



The location of this station is an excellent one, twenty miles from Havana in the western 

 part of Havana province, and it is reached hourly by electric trains on the Western Railway of 

 Havana. The farm is several hundred acres in extent and lies in a typical red soil tobacco 

 country, which partly explains the wonderful results obtained here in the experiments with the 

 tobacco plant. 



The institution is a well organized one, and the niuuerous departments are in charge of 

 experts in their respective lines. The arrangement of the organization as to stations is as 

 follows : 



ANIMAL INDUSTRY AGRICULTURE 



HORTICULTURE BOTANY 



VEGETABLE PATHOLOGY CHEMISTRY AND SOIL PHYSICS 



LIBRARIAN 



Experiments are carried on here in field work, irrigation, treatment of soils, grafting, stock- 

 breeding, etc., and the full}' equipped laboratories add much to the scientific results obtained. 



The subject of irrigation has heretofore received but little attention in Cuba, in the first 

 place because the crops have been so ample that irrigation was thought to be unnecessary, 

 and in the second place the popular opinion seems to be that any system of artificially applying 

 water to the usual crops would be so expensive as to be impracticable. The extended drouth 

 of the past two years has been so severe, however, and such great damage has been done to 

 almost every agricultural and financial interest of the Island, particularly to the sugar interests, 

 that the subject is now receiving first consideration at this station. The station has no special 

 irrigation engineer as yet, but it managed to give the subject much attention and now 

 has a system of irrigation which is producing the desired results in cane and tobacco fields. 



