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THE CUBA REVIEW 



THE CUBAN TOBACCO INDUSTRY 



CUBAN TOBACCO WILL NOT YIELD THE SAME QUALITY ELSEWHERE — 

 THE TOBACCO GROWERS' NEEDS 



ANOTHER EFFORT TO GROW CUBAN 

 TOBACCO 



Disappointment and discouragement has 

 followed all attempts to grow Cuba's fa- 

 mous tobacco elsewhere than in its ow-n 

 territory in the Vuelta Abajo district in 

 Pinar del Rio Province. Even in other 

 provinces of Cuba there has been no suc- 

 cess. Several years ago the United States 

 government experts announced that they 

 had discovered identical soil and climatic 

 conditions in Texas as those in the Vuelta 

 Abajo Region and the then Secretary of 

 Agriculture Wilson confidently expected 

 that he would be able to produce tobacco 

 equally as good as that of Cuba. A United 

 States government expert obtained choice 

 Cuban tobacco seed here and took it to 

 Texas, planted it and cured it. But the 

 result was far from being that obtained in 

 Cuba's Vuelta Abajo. Experiments were 

 continued, but always with the same result. 

 A good tobacco was grown but there was 

 no comparison with Cuba's famous weed. 



A new series of experiments with the 

 same object in view, to grow Cuba's fine 

 tobacco from Cuban seed, in Dade County, 

 Florida, are about to be tried with what 

 success remains to be seen. 



Cuban tobacco as it exists to-day is a 

 composite, not of one variety or type, but 

 may be said to be heterogeneous in variety, 

 type and origin. This fact has been con- 

 clusively demonstrated, and has been proved 

 several times in a succession of experi- 

 ments in plant and seed selection. 



Cuban tobacco is composed of several 

 varieties of six or eight distinct types. We 

 say distinct varieties and types because they 

 have been separated and after segregation 

 have reproduced themselves true to the 

 parent plant, each type from the first to the 

 third generation. The variety and specific 

 type are pronounced. 



Cuba, beyond doubt, produces the finest 

 tobacco in the world. Just why this should 

 be so, no one has been able to explain. It 

 is not soil alone, nor alone the atmosphere. 

 Both seeds and soil, and even labor, have 

 been exported to foreign countries for ex- 

 periment, but failed to give the desired re- 

 sults : very likely it is the result of a com- 

 bination of elements and culture, which do 

 not exist in exactly the same proportion 

 in any other country or section in which 

 Cuban tobacco has been tried. Tobacco 

 being native to Cuba and the West Indies, 

 it is more than likely that the famous and 



v.orld renowned Vuelta Abajo tobacco is 

 simply enjoying its native habitat, the place 

 where nature put it and intended that it 

 shovdd be. 



The Cuban tobacco grower in the past 

 prepared his ground in a mountainous 

 place if it was available, sowed his seed, 

 put a little cross in the middle of it "to 

 keep the devil out" and then trusted to 

 luck. 



General Emilio Nufiez, the Secretary of 

 Agriculture, said the rains to a certain ex- 

 tent had been beneficial but he does not 

 look to a good crop in 1914 unless it should 

 rain in January. Dry and cool weather 

 would keep the young plants small. 



IMPROVED CREDIT SYSTEM NEEDED 



The tobacco growers need an improved 

 credit system (Credit Banks) to which 

 they can go and borrow money at reason- 

 a]3le rates. The present system of borrow- 

 ing money of friends and over-lords at the 

 ruinous rates of 1 and IV2 and 2% per 

 month is out of the question where econ- 

 omy is concerned. Possibly the most ur- 

 gent need of the Cuban veguero is good 

 schools and a compulsory educational law 

 for his children who, under the present 

 state of affairs, are growing up with less 

 educational advantages than their fathers. 



The veguero needs more education, more 

 encouragement, more wholesome entertain- 

 ment, less lottery and politics. 



FUTURE OF BUSINESS 



Don Ramon Arguelles, of the Romeo y 

 JuHeta factory, does not consider the out- 

 look for the future as rosy, as 'he was pre- 

 pared to see a lesser volume of business, 

 at least until the 15th of January, and he 

 laid particular stress upon the unsatisfac- 

 tory state of trade in Great Britain and 

 South America. As far as the United 

 States is concerned, he was somewhat un- 

 certain, whether the new law of the manu- 

 facturing in bond might not further curtail 

 Cuban exports to the States. 



CUBAN CIGARS IN ENGLAND 



England's importations of Cuban cigars 

 aggregated from January 1st to November 

 .3!),' lO]."]. .59,nP,0,466. For the same period in 

 1912, 5.5,49.5,970 cigars were imported, an 

 increase of 3,534,496 cigars. 



