T II K CUB A R E VIE W 



Cuba's Agricultural Problems 



It is interesting to note that the prob- 

 lems of the cane planters of Cuba are very 

 much the same as are today faced by 

 Philippine growers. Uninterrupted crop- 

 ping of Cuban cane fields has resulted in 

 a soil condition very much similar to that 

 found in certain sections of the Philip- 

 pines. Those who have felt that the Cuban 

 planter has no problem and that his sole 

 occupation consists of watching cane grow 

 and harvesting it at the right time, are due 

 for an awakening, which a perusal of the 

 following article will bring about: 



"The experiences of the past few years, 

 and especially during the present season, 

 have awakened a large number of Cuban 

 producers to the fact that they have an 

 agricultural problem, or more correctly a 

 series of agricultural problems, on their 

 hands. 



"Of course it would not be correct to 

 say that the maintenance of fertility, the 

 combating of pests, and the selection of 

 improved and disease-resisting types of 

 cane have gone entirely without attention 

 in Cuba. Some of the lands now occupied 

 by sugar estates have been worked, to some 

 extent at least, for two centuries or more 

 and have depended for many years upon 

 fertilization and thorough cultivation to 

 produce their crops. A few colonias have 

 been developed with the most careful and 

 scientific attention and produce yields as 

 high as are obtained anywhere in the world. 



"In general, however, the problems of 

 soil treatment and cultural methods have 

 been the least of the Cuban sugar pro- 

 ducer's worries. To get control of as much 

 land as possible, to clear a portion of it 

 expeditiously and get cane started on it, 

 and to provide transportation for moving 

 the crop from the fields to the mill has 

 been the accepted method of dealing with 

 the question of cane supply. 



"Once the fields were planted they were 

 expected to go on yielding indefinitely. If 

 a particular field failed to produce what 

 the owner or manager considered a fair 

 tonnage it was easier to abandon it or to 

 turn it into pasture and put new land under 

 cane than to spend time and money in 

 finding out the cause of the trouble and 



bringing the deficient field up to full 

 productivity. As before mentioned there 

 are some noteworthy exceptions, but in gen- 

 eral the attention of sugar men in Cuba, 

 as is true to a considerable extent of other 

 sugar growing countries as well, has been 

 centered mainly on extraction rather than 

 on production. Time, money, inventive 

 and administrative ability have been lav- 

 ished on the improvement of milling ma- 

 chinery, on the introduction of more ef- 

 ficient processes and more exact scientific 

 control in the handling of juices, in the 

 perfection of heat and power economies, 

 and in the adoption of a great variety of 

 time and labor saving devices in the fac- 

 tory, while the cane supply has been left 

 to take care of itself with only such as- 

 sistance as has come from relatively primi- 

 tive methods of cultivation. Perhaps one 

 main reason for the contrast between field 

 and factory methods is the fact that the 

 development of the latter was not left to 

 the sugar men alone, but engaged the con- 

 stant attention of technical experts in the 

 employ of equipment manufacturers who 

 had the impetus of an ever broadening 

 market to encourage them in the devel- 

 opment and introduction of improved 

 mechanical appliances. 



"Much has been said, and justly so, of 

 Cuba's exceptional equipment for the low- 

 cost production of sugar. The founder of 

 one of the largest and most successful 

 sugar companies in the island was fond of 

 remarking that Nature had made Cuba 

 a perfect workshop for the production of 

 cane and it only remained for man to con- 

 vert it into marketable form. Another 

 veteran sugar producer who kept account 

 of the yield of one tract of land, ratooned 

 for twenty years, found that the best yield 

 was realized in the fourteenth year. Un- 

 doubtedly Cuba has some magnificent soil 

 and a climate particularly favorable to the 

 growth of cane, but no soil will withstand 

 a mining process indefinitely, as the own- 

 ers of lands that have been yielding cane 

 crops for twenty years or more without 

 assistance are now beginning to discover. 



"The old recourse of bringing new lands 

 into bearing is no longer so readily avail- 



