TOBACCO CULTURE IN THE WEST INDIES 13 
ferent localities were of very different quality even though 
the climate varied but slightly. It would therefore not 
be safe to say that a good tobacco can or cannot be grown 
in a certain locality without making a practical trial. 
In the Pinar del Rio ‘Province in Cuba, which produces 
the famous Vuelta Abajo tobacco, the mean temperature 
for the five months, November, December, January, Feb- 
ruary and March, is about 54 Degrees Fahrenheit mini- 
mum and 86 degrees Fahrenheit maximum. To insure a 
good crop the rainfall should be about 3 inches per month 
for the five months, but it is often much less and the re- 
sult is a short crop. 
In Porto Rico, the tobacco districts are in the mountains 
and the rainfall is usually sufficient for a full crop, being 
about 4 inches per month. 
SEED SELECTION 
The foudation of the tobacco plant is the seed. A good 
seed may produce a poor tobacco if the conditions are fa- 
vorable but a poor seed will never produce a good tobacco 
even if the conditions are ideal. The method commonly 
used of gathering the seed from left over suckers is ruin- 
ous, and if kept up for a number of years, the grade of 
the tobacco will deteriorate in spite of all other precau- 
tions taken. In the West Indies where usually only one 
variety is grown there need be no fear of intermixing with 
other varieties and it is not the purity about which there 
is any question, but the seeds from an inferior plant will 
produce an inferior plant hence nothing should be used but 
seeds from the very choicest plants. An ideal method is 
to go through the field before the plants are topped and 
