1U 



humboldt's cuba. 



The lands in the district of Havana are not the 

 most fertile, and the few sugar plantations that were 

 near the capital have been turned into grazing farms, 

 and fields of corn and forage, the demand for the 

 city making them very profitable. Agriculturists in 

 Cuba recognize two classes of land which are often 

 found intermixed like the squares of a chess-board ; 

 the black or brown soil, which is argillaceous, and 

 highly charged with sooty exhalations, and the red 

 land, which is a strong soil and mixed with oxide of 

 iron. Although the black land is generally preferred 

 for the cultivation of the sugar cane, because it pre- 

 serves its moisture better, and the red land for the 

 coffee tree, yet many sugar plantations have been 

 made in the red lands. 



[Note. The geology of Cuba is still very imper- 

 fectly known, no systematic examination of its sur- 

 face having been made, and the board appointed to 

 compile the "Cuadro Estadistico" of 1846 stated, 

 that in regard to this portion of their labors they 

 could do little more than reproduce the remarks 

 accompanying the " Cuadro " of 1827. Besides the 

 observations of Baron Humboldt, Don Francisco 

 Ramirez, and Don Ramon de la Sagra have been 

 the principal scientific writers on this subject; the 

 former having travelled through a portion of the east- 



