THE CUBA REVIEW 19 
ready for delivery to the transportation line which carries it to its final destination. 
With the withdrawal from the bales in the warehouse of our tobacco factories 
of the tobacco for each day’s task begins the careful calculations necessary for their 
most economical operation. With the present high cost of wrapper. tobacco, averag- 
ing easily, even here in Cuba, $300 per bale, this grade of tobacco has to be treated 
like gold leaf, and only enough is removed each day to permit the wrapping of the 
following day’s manufacture. The care that is required in this can readily be realized 
when it is considered that in every factory a considerable number of sizes and grades 
of cigars is being made at the same time. To wrap them a certain number of leaves 
of probably each of the various sizes and grades of wrapper held in the warehouse 
will be required. These are removed, taken to the “casing” (wetting) department, 
wet down as described, and later on delivered to the strippers. They are then carried 
to the wrapper classification department (rezagado), where they are classified accord- 
ing to size, grade, and roughly as to color, and they are then delivered to the various 
cigar-makers as they will be required by each according to grade and size of the 
cigar each is working on. In the same manner, the filler has been distributed after 
the blend for the particular brand of cigar being made has been made. This is a 
department of itself, and on the results obtained has depended in the past much of 
the celebrity of the marks of some of our local cigar factories. 
At the present time all Havana cigars are hand made. Machine made cigars 
have never been turned out in any number by our local factories, and today it can 
be said that none are being made. Thus in each of our factories when running at 
full capacity long rows of men, each seated at his table, can be seen, seated the length 
and breadth of ample rooms, each with his supply of filler and wrapper, the latter 
well protected from drying out, and each busy in his own way according to the 
grade of cigar that he is turning out. The necessary quantity. of filler is taken by the 
operator, molded roughly into the form of the finished cigar, wrapped in an extra 
large leaf (sometimes specially provided for this purpose), and then around this is 
placed the wrapper, previousl® cut te the desired shape. Skill and care are required 
in this final step, the time required for this operation increasing as the quality of the 
cigar being made becomes better. In the same way the remuneration of the operator 
per hundred cigars increases according to the grade of cigars turned out by him. It 
is very interesting to watch the skill with which the expert cigar-amaker uses his 
fingers in adjusting the wrapper to the partially molded cigar, smoothing out all 
wrinkles, concealing carefully in the highest grade goods the edge of the wrapper 
so that it will blend in one uniform color over the whole cigar, making the diameter 
of the cigar conform to the standard set for the size that he is working, patching up 
a small defect in the wrapper, and finally cutting off to the exact length the cigar he 
has made. The cost of some of our most perfect cigars can be accounted for when 
it is known that in this grade of cigars expert workers will turn out only about 
twenty per day, and that the mest careful sclection is made of all the materials, 
especially the wrappers, that go into them. 
At the end of the day’s work each cigar-maker ties his day’s product into bundles 
containing 25 to 50 cigars, places his number on each bundle, and delivers them to the 
collector, by whom they are taken to the inspection department. Here they are care- 
fully examined, one at a time, and the defects of each workman noticed, so that he 
may be advised to avoid a repetition the following day. In this inspection all defects, 
no matter how small, are detected. Cigars of the same grade must be of the same 
length (not approximately, but exactly), and of the same diameter (ring measure- 
ment), and furthermore, in the better grades the wrapper must be free from flaws 
and patches, and the cigar properly finished. 
From this department the cigars are then taken to the selecting department, 
where they are placed in large cedar cabinets for several days to begin seasoning, 
after which they are taken out and examined one by one and divided into groups 
