THE CUBA REVIEW i 
or acceptable sugar prices the profits taken from these not long ago ‘‘worthless”’ soils 
have been great. 
_ That proper conclusions may be arrived at by the investigator into the possibilities 
of the fertilizer industry in Cuba, a résumé of the soil characteristics found in the various 
provinces of the Island will be helpful. In Pinar del Rio Province, in the extreme western 
portion, is found a small body of red land, in places a sandy loam, in others a heavier 
clay underlaid with limestone, which in many places appears above the surface as the 
well known “‘dog-tooth” rock formation so prevalent in many localities in Cuba. The 
lighter of these soils have been devoted for many years to tobacco growing, and have 
proved to be excellently adapted to the production of Irish potatoes, onions and other 
vegetables, and the use of fertilizer on all these crops has proved profitable. Irrigation 
water can be obtained in great abundance and at no great depth, so that the conditions 
for growth of these crops during the dry season are favorable. To the east of the 
Cuyaguateje River are found very large areas of true sandy loams, in all of which the 
use of fertilizer is essential in order that profitable crops be secured. To the north of the 
mountain range extending practically the whole length of the province and to the south 
of the central plain in which the sandy loams just referred to occur, are found large areas 
of black heavy clay soils, very fertile in their original state, now in places exhausted on 
account of the loss of the organic matter originally held by them, on which the use of 
fertilizers has not conclusively shown profit. Farther east in the central portion of the 
province and extending into Havana and Matanzas provinces, are large areas of red 
soil of two classes, one a heavy clay, the other a lighter pervious clay, both varying in 
depth from only a few inches overlying the limestone to a great many feet, both extremely 
productive in their original condition and even today under the proper use of irrigating 
water, capable of producing even without fertilizer, very acceptable crops. On the 
heavier of these red clays, the use of fertilizer has frequently been shown to be profitable, 
but as frequently the increase in the crop due to the fertilizer has not offset its cost; 
but on the rather more pervious red soils, known in Cuba as “‘terreno colorado de pol- 
villo,” failure to obtain profitable results from the use of fertilizer accompanied by normal 
care in cultivation has been very rare, and can be traced usually to the faults of the 
agriculturist himself. Interspersed throughout these large areas of red land are found 
quite large bodies of soils of heavier type and of colors varying from a deep black through 
brown to yellow on which the profitable use of fertilizer is a question of locality, as only 
by experiments carried out on individual farms can the advisability of the use of fertilizer 
in each farm be ascertained. 
The Province of Santa Clara generally consists of more virgin soils than those being 
farmed in the three western provinces. In the western portion of this province occur 
considerable bodies of the red soils which we have just mentioned, and these respond 
abundantly and surely to the use of fertilizer; but there are also found in this province 
very large areas of land, some of which have been under continuous cultivation for a 
great many years, and in which, due to their physical characteristics, the use of the 
ordinary commercial fertilizer has been shown to be unprofitable. These soils are 
uniformly of a very heavy type, are usually underlaid by a rather impervious clay, and 
through the many years of cultivation without the return to them of the organic matter 
which has been removed from them, have become inert mineral masses, the improve- 
ment of which is possible only through the mingling with them of large quantities of 
coarse materials such as the refuse of our filter presses ‘‘cachaza,”’ stable manure, and 
the plowing under of several leguminous crops. Even after this is done, these soils go 
~ back very rapidly to the condition in which they were found before this improving treat- 
ment, and it is generally acknowledged that about the only method to obtain fairly 
satisfactory results from their use is to prepare them thoroughly and after planting to 
give them the very best of cultivation. In the central portion of this province there is 
found quite an area of rather heavy sandy clay soils, very poor and lacking in drainage, 
on which the use of fertilizers accompanied by the proper agricultural methods has given 
good results. 
