32 THE CUBA REV LEW 
Home Mixing Scene, Herradura, Province of Pinar del Rio 
habits have been cultivated by a great many of our fertilizer manufacturers, especially 
those managing locally organized companies. These have not been any too careful in 
the selection and use of the raw materials employed to make up their goods, nor in re- 
quiring definitely that their manufactured products conform to the analysis under which 
they are sold. The trying period of the fertilizer industry into which we are entering, 
will, however, sift the chaff from the wheat, and we believe that it will not be long before 
only the solid substantial companies putting out worthy and meritorious goods in which 
implicit confidence can be had, will continue to supply the demand for fertilizers in Cuba. 
The prospects of the fertilizer industry here at present are similar to those con- 
fronting practically every other industry, not only here but throughout the world. 
Throughout the United States wheat, corn, cotton, peanut, rice, fruit and truck growers 
have all felt the influence of smaller demand and lower prices. Just so in Cuba, the 
growers of our principal crops, sugar and tobacco, have found the demand much below 
normal, and prices obtainable very much lower than even the cost at which these pro- 
ducts are being grown, with the result that the greater the crop the heavier the loss. 
Naturally no incentive remains for the use of fertilizers, especially on a crop like cane, 
which stands in the field for so long and is harvested at such a late date after planting, as 
to enable calculations regarding the possible price to be obtained therefor to be rather 
hazardous. Therefore, we believe that in the cane industry fertilizers will be used only 
by those whose lands without fertilizer would produce so little as not to return the 
cultivation expense, or by those who are so favorably situated as to enable them to pro- 
duce with extraordinary cheapness. But this condition must be only temporary. There 
is no doubt that prosperity will return, and with its return a heavier demand for all 
classes of necessities, and also a demand for a great many luxuries will spring up, so 
that there will again be a request for fertilizers in large quantities among our sugar and 
tobacco planters, and the more careful and intelligent preparation of the soil and 
cultivation of the planted fields that will be required in this more normal period to 
come, will cause the returns from the use of fertilizers to be considerably greater dollar 
for dollar of the money involved. There is no doubt whatever that the present fertilizer 
manufacturing capacity of the Island is fully sufficient to meet any demands that may 
spring up until the full return of the normal period to which we have just referred, but 
it seems possible that at that time further expansion will be necessary among these 
companies who have been so managed as to live through the present depression. 
