THE CUBA REVIEW And Bulletin. 



Cuban ox-cart in Palm Avenue, near Havana. 

 Una carreta cubana de buey en la Avenida de las Palmas, cerca a la Habana. 



■ing, planting of soil-renovating legumes, the formation of compost heaps, 

 planting of permanent crops of staple value, and all the other operations which 

 tend to make a farm worth more next year than it is now — there is none of it here. 

 And this can mean but one thing — impoverishment and depreciation in value. 



Yet even a superficial inspection will convince anyone familiar with the best 

 modern intensive methods in tropical agriculture, that places like these possess 

 immense possibilities under proper management — resident management — for one of 

 the common causes of failure in tropical agriculture is non-resident direction— a 

 fatal condition at the outset. For what is true of farms of this size anywhere, is 

 equally true in the tropics — they are worth expert management — and under such man- 

 agement are often highly remunerative. Fine cane could just as well be 

 grown here as poor cane and the margin of profit would be larger. Larger 

 yearly extensions in rubber, coffee, cacao, and other permanent and valuable 

 plantings could be easily made at very little extra effort. The soil is of a char- 

 acter that would produce fine crops of tobacco, tomatoes, eggplants, and other things 

 that — with expert management — would yield immediate and good returns. Its propel 

 operation would at once involve more wells, more machinery, mules, fences, more m^n, 

 etc. But the planting of bananas, melengas, plantains, sweet potatoes and forage crops, 

 etc., would tend to make the place self-supporting in the sense of offsetting these outlays. 

 A few good bulls and boars would soon entirely change the character of the stock, and 

 make far greater returns possible from this source. The proper management of seed beds 

 for the home plantings would, at slight additional cost, also yield abundance of stock for 

 sale over wide adjoining territory. As fine seedlings of rubber, coffee, cacao, tobacco, 

 tomatoes, eggplant, cabbage, etc., could be produced on this place as anywhere in the 

 Island. 



Without pursuing the possibilities farther in their ramifying details' we may again 

 call attention to the importance of this farm as a shining example of the utterly dormant 

 condition of general agriculture in Cuba — the only agriculture in which the Island can 

 ever hope to find a safe and broad economic basis. Properly managed, a place of 

 this kind might ser^^e as an educational example that would be worth millions to the 

 whole Island. 



