EVERGREENS IN THE SPRING OF 1857. 



strong efforts are made to keep up this appearance, and a simulated article has to 

 be resorted to the moment the demand exceeds the supply, which is always limited. 

 Then come the various methods of deception ; the wrapper must be exact in 

 color, and it is dyed ; the shape must be the same, and the maker skilled in this 

 particular form must have a hifrher price, or he will go over to a rival house. 



Instances of these kind of dilhculties are constantly related, and an employer 

 has frequently to advance large sums to his best workmen, to keep them in good 

 humor ; when this quality fails them, the rival will pay all they owe, to get them 

 into his workshop, the best makers being always in demand, and earning from 

 two to six dollars a day, according to their skill. 



The leaf requires to be in a particular stage of moisture, to work to advan- 

 tage, and you may see, as the evening hour of closing the factory comes on, the 

 master mind is dropping or sprinkling his leaves, and laying them out all over the 

 room in various proportions, according to ascertained necessity. And here an- 

 other process is resorted to ; this is of course the moment for dyeing the wrapper ; 

 but it is also the opportunity embraced \o flavor what is to constitute the interior ; 

 a popular brand must be kept as nearly as possible of one taste ; as in wine, it 

 is easy to deceive in this particular, and the fitting is immersed in a solution of 

 other tobaccos, made to resemble as nearly as possible the flavor required. Thus, 

 a good tasted crop will flavor a whole invoice of cigars very probably manufactured 

 from Virginia, or tobacco imported from some other island. This is done in wines 

 of all countries, and it is surely as fair a transaction in cigars. 



Cigar making is a profitable operation, though it may be deemed of inferior 

 importance to the sugar crop. Both combined have made money extremely abund- 

 ant during the late season of high prices. Eight millions of specie arrived in 

 Havana in March alone, and the rate of interest was but two per cent, per annum ; 

 new banks were going into operation on a speculative scale, and it was seasonably 

 argued that cash so easily collected as it was, would lead to the ruin of many now 

 called wealthy. Cuba has its revulsions as well as New York and Philadelphia. 



The cultivation of the island is 

 slovenly in the extreme. There is 

 often as much difficulty experienced 

 in ploughing the land as in a new 

 clearing incumbered with stumps 

 in the United States, from the under- 

 lying coral rock ; our own ploughs 

 are occasionally introduced, but the 

 inhabitants give the preference to 

 the annexed singular and awkward 

 implement. The horse, ox, or mule, 



is geared to the end of the long shaft •*■ Cubau piougb! 



by a chain, and how the apparatus 

 is made to scratch a little furrow, is a mystery to the uninitiated. 



EVERGREENS IN THE SPRING OF 1857. 



BY H. W. SARGENT, WODENETHE, NEAR FISHKILL LANDING, N. Y. 



In reply to your desire to know the effect of the past winter upon the newer 

 Evergreens, I regret I shall be compelled to give you an unsatisfactory result 

 A winter so unprecedented in its character as that of 1855-6, followed so 



