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and watering, nearly all the natives grow some tobacco, and several firms 

 have large areas under cultivation. The most valuable tobacco, the 

 wrapper leaf, is often grown under shade, or covered with cheese cloth, as it 

 is thus protected from hawk-moth larva, and, also, the breaking of the direct 

 rays of the sun keeps the ground moist for a much longer time after watering, 

 so that the growth is much more vigorous than when grown in the open. 

 At Messrs. Sylvester, Stein, & Co. 's plantation there were 30 acres of wrapper- 

 leaf tobacco growing under cheese cloth, over regular posts and wire supports 

 about 8 feet in height, and all the doors were covered with the same material, 

 so that it was a perfect enclosure. All this is carefully watered, and each 

 leaf dried separately, hung over poles in the tobacco house, and dried without 

 artificial heat. Mr. Home informed me that each plant was estimated to be 

 worth 10 cents. Water is obtained from wells, but has to be pumped up 

 about 80 feet all over this district. 



There are cocoa nut palms growing in most parts of the island, but the larger 

 plantations are in the south. One of the most serious troubles of the cocoa-nut 

 palm is a bacterial disease, known as the " bud rot disease "; it attacks old 

 trees and very young ones, and when once infected the tree soon dies. It is 

 a well-known disease in many of the West Indian islands. There is a very 

 large water bug (fielostoma, sp.), which is very common in .the lagoons and 

 waterholes ; in the summer months it comes flying round the 1'ght and the 

 lamps in the houses at night. For some unknown reason the natives believe 

 that this bug is the cause of " bud rot " in the cocoa-nut palms. 



There are many large sugar plantations in different parts of Cuba, and 

 though during the many years of civil war numbers went out of cultivation, 

 and the old mills fell into decay, during latter years some large areas have 

 been planted. I visited one of the older plantations at Giiines, La Provi- 

 dencia, where they have been growing sugar-cane for the last hundred years 

 without any fertilisers. This plantation is one of the largest of the old 

 plantations, and is worked on the old Cuban plan with colonos. The cane 

 land is let to farmers colonos who till the land, plant and cut the cane, 

 and after it is crushed, are paid in sugar as their share of the produce. This 

 estate consists of 800 caballarias (33J acres to a caballaria), or about 26,300 

 acres. Most of the cane is allowed to grow from eight to ten years without 

 replanting, and the percentage of sugar in the juice ranges from 9 to 12J- 

 per cent. 



At the invitation of the manager of the United Fruit Company, I went 

 from Santiago de Cuba to Banis, where the company have a sugar plantation, 

 worked on modern plans, of about 20,000 acres of cane, 60 miles of permanent 

 railway lines, and an up-to-date mill. Chilperic, the adjoining estate, has 

 40,000 acres of sugar-cane. The country is very flat, chiefly black soil, and was 

 originally covered with a dense forest. The company first started this estate 

 to grow bananas for export to the States, but for some undiscovered reason 

 bananas would not thrive, so they placed it under cane. The average rainfall 

 is 60 inches, but last year only 23 inches had fallen, and the whole district 

 was suffering from the drought. They estimated their sugar crop at about 

 30,000 tons of sugar, all of which is snipped dirrct from Banis to New York, 

 New Orleans, and Baltimore. There are also some large sugar plantations, 

 in the Cienfugeos district. 



At the town of Giiines, which I visited with Mr. Home (Pathologist at 

 the Experiment Station) we went over the great centre of the vegetable- 

 growing industry, under irrigation from a large river that comes directly out 

 of a limestone hill, and the water from which is carried in channels all over 

 the rich black soil. An immense number of tomatoes are grown here by the 



