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I 



THE CUBA REVIEW. 



Cuba's Agricultural Possibilities. 



By Prof. F. G. Earle. 



Late Director Cuba Agricultural Experiment Station. 



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MILES OF WONDERFULLY FERTILE LANDS WITH NO HUMAN HABITATION IN SIGHT. 



IN considering Cuban agricultural conditions the first possibilities that strike one are 

 the great chances for improvement in the methods of production of Cuba's three 

 great staples — sugar, tobacco, and cattle. 



It seems unbelievable that great corporations with millions of capital should 

 be carrj'ing on the strictly agricultural business of sugar cane growing without employ- 

 ing the best obtainable agricultural expert advice. They assuredly employ the best 

 legal talent ; they employ the best machinists and engineers ; and they employ expert 

 sugar chemists, to conduct the manufacturing side of the business; growing the cane 

 however, the foundation upon which the entire industry rests, is in most cases left 

 in the hands of ignorant overseers, who still follow antiquated methods and depend 

 almost entirely upon expensive hand labor. On those estates still planting new lands, 

 this exclusive use of hand labor is almost unavoidable ; the greater part of Cuban 

 sugar is however to-day produced upon old lands where the use of agricultural ma- 

 chinery is not only feasible but imperatively required in order to cheapen production. 

 Experiments conducted at the Cuban Agricultural Experiment Station conclusively 

 proved that the implements used for cultivating cane and corn in the United States 

 can be used equally well in Cuba and by Cuban laborers, furthermore that their use 

 together with suitable fertilizers and a reasonable system of cultivation will cheapen 

 the cost of production nearly or quite 50 per cent. This is a most noteworthy economy, 

 and the greatest agricultural opportunity in Cuba to-day seems to me to be in the 

 employment of modern agricultural methods for the production of cane. This op- 

 portunity exists not for the great corporations alone, but for the man of small means 

 as well. Much of the cane for the large centrals is produced by small farmers, called 

 "colonos," who farm either their own land or that furnished them by the company. 

 Any hard working farmer from the Middle West who understands corn cultivation, 

 and who has sufficient capital to provide teams and tools, could make favorable arrange- 

 ments for securing land from almost any of the large sugar companies who would 

 take the cane, when mature, giving a certain percentage of its weight in sugar, or if 

 preferred its market value in money. On most estates advances will also be made after 

 the crop is planted to help pay for its cultivation. This is an opportunity for the 

 American farmer in Cuba, that is being entirely overlooked, but it seems to offer a 

 safe and fairly profitable business opening. The knowledge of farming methods, and 

 especially of the use of farm machinery that would be brought in by such people 

 would be of inestimable benefit to the whole sugar industry of the Island. 



