PHE CUBA REVIEW 19 
Camagiiey Province varies in soil characteristics perhaps as much, if not more, 
than any other province of the Island. Here lines of transportation have been established 
only within the last few years, so that five years ago there was a vast forest area occupy- 
ing her northern shores, and there is still today a similar large forest area covering the 
lands between the Cuba Railroad and the south shore, broken only where plantings 
have been made for the sugar mills established to the east of Ciego de Avila during the 
last three or four years of high sugar prices. In the extreme western portion of the 
province and extending to the east of Ciego de Avila, and pretty well along the entire 
north coast between Morén and the Maximo River, is found a body of red land in many 
places of great depth, of wonderful original fertility, but which is already beginning to 
feel the need of fertilizers, on which these can be and are being used with profitable 
results. Similarly in the lighter lands of the central plain, there are considerable areas 
on which the use of fertilizers is commercially profitable. 
Only Oriente Province is left to be considered. As a whole the province is very new 
from an agricultural standpoint. In the Guantanamo district, however, quite a number 
of sugar mills are located within a limited area, compelling their owners to make the most 
intense use possible of the lands subject to their control, with the result that here the 
fertility of the soil has been greatly reduced and the necessity for restoring to it the plant 
foods removed has been recognized for some time, and we understand that quite satis- 
factory results have been obtained from the use of fertilizers in particular classes of the 
soil in the Guantdnamo Valley. However, it is doubtful whether the use of fertilizers 
on 90% of the soils of this province will ever prove profitable, as they consist mostly of 
the heavy black types underlaid at no great depth with a more or less impervious clay, 
which have resisted all attempts to improve their crops through fertilization. 
From the above, a brief summary indicates that the areas of land which respond to 
the proper use of fertilizers are as follows: A large portion of the Province of Pinar del 
Rio, especially south and east of the mountain range; a considerable area in Havana 
Province, this consisting mostly of the lighter type of red soil; a very large percentage 
of the Province of Matanzas, consisting also of varying qualities of red soil; a consider- 
able area in the western portion of Santa Clara Province, and a small area in the central 
portion thereof; similarly a considerable area in the western portion of Camagiiey Pro- 
vince, some small areas along the north coast near and to the west of La Gloria, and an 
area of considerable size in the central plain of this province; and in the Guantdnamo 
Valley a small area of lands long devoted to the cultivation of sugar cane. 
The history of the fertilizer industry in Cuba is quite similar to that which would 
result from the attempted introduction of anything new to the Latin-American agri- 
culturist in any other country. Our farmers are always “from Missouri” with regard 
to anything with which they are not familiar and which they have not seen tried out 
practically. It was, therefore, no surprise when the first small fertilizer factory or mixing 
plant, established near Havana about 1884 or 1885, by Conde Ibdfiez and Edgar Car- 
bonne, failed. The managers of the business were similar to the planters to whom 
they intended to sell their fertilizers, in that they themselves were not familiar with the 
mdustry which they were attempting to introduce. 
The history of the fertilizer business here can be divided into three phases: that 
of the introduction and use of Peruvian Guano, that of the introduction and use of 
commercial fertilizers prepared abroad and imported, and that of the preparation in 
Cuba of the same class of fertilizer. 
Peruvian Guano was introduced to the agriculturists of Cuba about 1881, through 
the European firm Ollendorff Fertilizer Works, in connection with H. Upmann, one of 
Cuba’s bankers. The business was continued later between 1885 and 1894 by Sr. 
Bonifacio Pifién, in connection with the Peruvian Corporation, and still later between 
1894 and 1898 by the Compagnie Generale Commercial Francaise, also in conjunction 
with the Peruvian Corporation, these firms working through 8. F. Berndes & Co., of 
Havana. In 1898, this business was transferred from the French Co. to W. R. Grace 
& Co., who, with the Peruvian Corporation and R. Berndes, continued shipping this 
