Part 9

Chemically, sugar is a compound belonging to the group of carbohydrates, or organic compounds of carbon with oxygen and hydrogen. The group includes sugars, starches, gums, and celluloses. Sugar is a product of the vegetable kingdom, of plants, trees, root crops, etc. It is found in and is producible from many growths. As a laboratory process, it is obtainable from many sources, but, commercially, it is derived from only two, the sugar cane and the beet root. This statement, however, has a certain limitation in that it omits such products as maple sugar, malt sugar, milk sugar, and others having commercial or chemical uses on a limited scale. But it is only with the crystallized sucrose, the familiar sugar of the market and the household, that we are dealing here. The output of the other sugars is measurable in hundreds or even thousands of pounds, but the output of the sugar of commerce is measured in millions of tons. Long experience proves that the desired substance is most readily, most abundantly, and most cheaply, obtained from the juices of the plant commonly known as sugar cane, and from the vegetable known as the sugar beet.

The mechanical processes employed in producing sugar from cane and from beets, are practically the same. They are, broadly, the extraction or expression of the juices, their clarification and evaporation, and crystallization. These processes produce what is called "raw sugar," of varying percentages of sucrose content. Following them, there comes, for American uses, the process of refining, of removing the so-called impurities and foreign substances, and the final production of sugar in the shape of white crystals of different size, of sugar as powdered, cube, loaf, or other form. In the case of cane sugar, this is usually a secondary operation not conducted in the original mill. In the case of beet sugar, production is not infrequently a continuous operation in the same mill, from the beet root to the bagged or barrelled sugar ready for the market. The final product from both cane and beet is practically the same. Pure sugar is pure sugar, whatever its source. In the commercial production, on large scale, there remains a small fraction of molasses or other harmless substances, indistinguishable by sight, taste, or smell. With that fraction removed and an absolute 100 per cent. secured, there would be no way by which the particular origin could be determined. For all practical purposes, the sugar of commerce, whether from cane or beet, is pure sugar. It is doubtful if an adulterated sugar can be found in the United States, notwithstanding the tales of the grocer who "sands" his sugar, and of the producer who adds terra alba or some other adulterant. In some countries of Europe and elsewhere, there are sugars of inferior grades, of 85 or 90 or more degrees of sugar purity, but they are known as such and are sold at prices adjusted to their quality. Sugars of that class are obtainable in this country, but they are wanted almost exclusively for particular industrial purposes, for their glucose rather than their sucrose content. The American household, whether the home of the rich or of the poor, demands the well-known white sugar of established purity.

There is still obtainable, in this country, but in limited quantity, a sugar very pleasantly remembered by many who have reached or passed middle age. It was variously known as "Muscovado" sugar, or as "plantation sugar," sometimes as "coffee" or "coffee crushed." It was a sugar somewhat sweeter to the taste than the white sugar, by reason of the presence of a percentage of molasses. It was a superior sugar for certain kitchen products, for pies, certain kinds of cake, etc. It has many times been urged in Congress that the employment of what is known as the Dutch Standard, now abolished, excluded this sugar from our market. This is not at all the fact. The disappearance of the commodity is due solely to change in the mechanical methods of sugar production. It would be quite impossible to supply the world's sugar demand by the old "open kettle" process by which that sugar was made. The quality of sugar is easily tested by any one who has a spoonful of sugar and a glass of water. If the sugar dissolves entirely, and dissolves without discoloring the water, it may be accepted as a pure sugar.

In his book on The World's Cane Sugar Industry--Past and Present, Mr. H.C. Prinsen Geerligs, a recognized expert authority on the subject, gives an elaborate history of the origin and development of the industry. His chapters on those branches are much too long for inclusion in full, but the following extracts tell the story in general outline. He states that the probability that sugar cane originally came from India is very strong, "as only the ancient literature of that country mentions sugar cane, while we know for certain that it was conveyed (from there) to other countries by travellers and sailors." The plant appears in Hindu mythology. A certain prince expressed a desire to be translated to heaven during his lifetime, but Indra, the monarch of the celestial regions, refused to admit him. A famous Hindu hermit, Vishva Mitra, prepared a temporary paradise for the prince, and for his use created the sugar cane as a heavenly food during his occupation of the place. The abode was afterward demolished, but the delectable plant, and a few other luxuries, were "spread all over the land of mortals as a permanent memorial of Vishva Mitra's miraculous deeds." In the time of Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.) there appear tales of "a reed growing in India which produced honey without the aid of bees."

The early references are to sugar cane and not to cane sugar. While there may have been earlier experiences, the history of sugar, as such, seems to begin in the 7th century (A.D.). There is a story that the Chinese Emperor, Tai Tsung (627-650 A.D.) sent people to Behar, in India, to learn the art of sugar manufacture. The Arabs and the Egyptians soon learned how to purify sugar by re-crystallization, and to manufacture sweetmeats from the purified sugar. Marco Polo, who visited China during the last quarter of the 13th Century, refers to "a great many sugar factories in South China, where sugar could be freely bought at low prices." The Mohammedan records of that period also show the manufacture, in India, of crystallized sugar and candy. The area of production at that time covered, generally, the entire Mediterranean coast. The crusaders found extensive plantations in Tripoli, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Syria, and elsewhere. The plant is said to have been introduced in Spain as early as the year 755. Its cultivation is said to have been a flourishing industry there in the year 1150. Through China, it was early extended to Japan, Formosa, and the Philippines. The records of the 14th Century show the production and distribution of sugar as an important commercial enterprise in the Mediterranean region. The Portuguese discoveries of the 15th Century carried the plant to the Azores, the Cape Verde islands, and to possessions in the Gulf of Guinea. The Spaniards took it to the Western Hemisphere in the early years of the 16th Century. The Portuguese took it to Brazil at about the same time. While a Chinese traveller, visiting Java in 424, reports the cultivation of sugar cane, it was not until more than twelve hundred years later that the island, now an important source of sugar supply, began the production of sugar as a commercial enterprise. By the end of the 18th Century there was what might be called a sugar belt, girdling the globe and extending, roughly, from thirty-five degrees north of the equator to thirty-five degrees south of that line. It was then a product of many of the countries within those limits. The supply of that time was obtained entirely from cane.

The early years of the 19th Century brought a new experience in the sugar business. That was the production of sugar, in commercial quantities, from beets. From that time until now, the commodity has been a political shuttlecock, the object of government bounties and the subject of taxation. In 1747, Herr Marggraf, of the Academy of Sciences, in Berlin, discovered the existence of crystallizable sugar in the juice of the beet and other roots. No practical use was made of the discovery until 1801 when a factory was established near Breslau, in Silesia. The European beet-sugar industry, that has since attained enormous proportions, had its actual beginning in the early years of the 19th Century. It was a result of the Napoleonic wars of that period. When the wars were ended, and the blockades raised, the industry was continued in France by the aid of premiums, differentials, and practically prohibitory tariffs. The activities in other European countries under similar conditions of governmental aid, came a little later. The total world supply of sugar, including cane and beet, less than 1,500,000 tons, even as recently as 1850, seems small in comparison with the world's requirement of about twelve times that quantity at the present time. The output of beet sugar was then only about 200,000 tons, as compared with a present production of approximately 8,000,000 tons. But sugar was then a costly luxury while it is today a cheaply supplied household necessity. As recently as 1870, the wholesale price of granulated sugar in New York was thirteen and a half cents a pound, or about three times the present average.

Cane sugar is produced in large or small quantities in some fifty different countries and islands. In many, the output is only for domestic consumption, or in quantity too small to warrant inclusion in the list of sources of commercial supply. Sixteen countries are included in the list of beet-sugar producers. Of these, all are in Europe with the exception of the United States and Canada. Only two countries, the United States and Spain, produce sugar from both beet and cane. British India leads in the production of cane sugar, with Cuba a close second on the list, and Java the third. In their total, these three countries supply about two-thirds of the world's total output of cane sugar. Hawaii and Porto Rico, in that order, stand next on the list of producers. Under normal conditions, Germany leads in beet-sugar production, with Russia second, Austria-Hungary third, France fourth, and the United States fifth, with Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Sweden, and Denmark following. The island of Cuba is the most important source of commercial cane sugar. Immediately before the revolution of 1895, its output a little exceeded a million tons. The derangement caused by that experience covered several years, and it was not until 1903 that so large a crop was again made. Since that time, the output has more than doubled. The increase is attributable to the large increase in demand in the United States, and to the advantage given Cuban sugar in this market by the reciprocity treaty of 1903. Practically all of Cuba's export product is in the class commonly known as 96 degree centrifugals, that is, raw sugar of 96 per cent, or thereabout, of sugar content. Under normal conditions, nearly all of Cuba's shipments are to the United States. The sugar industry was introduced in Cuba very soon after the permanent settlement of the island, by Spaniards, in the early years of the 16th Century, but it was not until two hundred and fifty years later that Spain's restrictive and oppressive colonial policy made even its fair extension possible. In 1760, two and a half centuries after the first settlement, the sugar exports of the island were a little less than 4,400 tons. In 1790, they were a little more than 14,000 tons. Some relaxation of the laws regulating production and exportation, made possible an increase to 41,000 tons in 1802, and further relaxation made possible, in 1850, an output somewhat unreliably reported as 223,000 tons. It reached 632,000 tons in 1890, and the stimulus of the "free sugar" schedule of the United States brought it, in the next few years, to more than a million tons. Production in recent years has averaged about 2,500,000 tons.

In forty years, only a little more than a single generation, the world's supply of sugar has been multiplied by five, from a little more than three million tons a year to nearly eighteen million tons. The total world output in 1875 would not today supply the demand of the United States alone. This increase in production has been made possible by improvements in the methods and the machinery of manufacture. Until quite recently, primitive methods were employed, much like those used in the production of maple sugar on the farm, although on larger scale. More attention has been paid to varieties of the plant and some, though no very great, change has been made in field processes. In Cuba, the cane is planted in vast areas, in thousands of acres. Some of the estates plant and cultivate their own fields, and grind the cane in their own mills. Others, known as "colonos," are planters only, the crop being sold to the mills commonly called "centrales." In its general appearance, a field of sugar-cane looks quite like a field of corn, but the method of cultivation is somewhat different. The slow oxen are still commonly used for plowing and for carts. This is not because of any lack of progressive spirit, but because experience has shown that, under all conditions of the industry, the ox makes the most satisfactory and economical motive power, notwithstanding his lack of pace.

The Encyclopædia describes sugar-cane as "a member of the grass family, known botanically as Saccbarum officinarum. It is a tall, perennial grass-like plant, giving off numerous erect stems 6 to 12 feet or more in height, from a thick solid jointed root-stalk." The ground is plowed in rows in which, not seed, but a stalk of cane is lightly buried. The rootlets and the new cane spring from the joints of the planted stalk which is laid flat and lengthwise of the row. It takes from a year to a year and a half for the stalk to mature sufficiently for cutting and grinding. Several cuttings, and sometimes many, are made from a single planting. There are tales of fields on which cane has grown for forty years without re-planting. A few years ago, ten or fifteen years was not an unusual period. The present tendency is toward more frequent planting, but not annual, as offering a better chance for stronger cane with a larger sugar content. The whole process of cultivation and field treatment is hard, heavy work, most of it very hard work. Probably the hardest and heaviest is the cutting. This is done with a long, heavy-bladed knife, the machete. The stalk, from an inch to two inches in thickness, is chopped down near the root, the heavy knife swung with cut after cut, under a burning sun. Only the strongest can stand it, a wearying, back-breaking task. After cutting, the stalk is trimmed and loaded on carts to be hauled, according to distance, either directly to the mill or to the railway running thereto. The large estates have their own railway systems running to all the fields of the plantation. These are private lines operated only for economy in cane transportation. Most of the crushing mills measure their daily consumption of cane in thousands of tons. While every precaution is taken, there are occasional fires. In planting, wide "fire lanes," or uncultivated strips are left to prevent the spread of fire if it occurs.

Mill installations vary on the different plantations, but the general principle of operation is the same on all. The first process is the extraction of the juice that carries the sugar. It is probable that this was originally done in hand mortars. Next came the passing of the cane between wooden rollers turned by ox power, the rollers standing upright and connected with a projecting shaft or beam to the outer end of which the animal was attached, to plod around and around while the cane was fed between the rollers. The present system is merely an expansion of that old principle. At the mill, the stalks are dumped, by carload or by cartload, into a channel through which they are mechanically conveyed to huge rollers, placed horizontally, arranged in pairs or in sets of three, and slowly turned by powerful engines. The larger mills have a series of these rollers, two, three, or even four sets, the stalks passing from one to another for the expression of every possible drop of the juice, up to the point where the cost of juice extraction exceeds the value of the juice obtained. The expressed juices are collected in troughs through which they are run to the next operation. The crushed stalks, then known as bagasse, are conveyed to the huge boilers where they are used as fuel for the generation of the steam required in the various operations, from the feeding and the turning of the rollers, to the device from which the final product, the crystallized sugar, is poured into bags ready for shipment. All this is a seasonal enterprise. The cane grows throughout the year, but it begins to ripen in December. Then the mills start up and run until the rains of the next May or June suspend further operations. It then becomes impossible to haul the cane over the heavily mired roads from the muddy fields. Usually, only a few mills begin their work in December, and early June usually sees most of them shut down. The beginning of the rainy season is not uniform, and there are mills in eastern Cuba that sometimes run into July and even into August. But the general grinding season may be given as of about five months duration, and busy months they are. The work goes on night and day.

The next step is the treatment of the juices expressed by the rollers and collected in the troughs that carry it onward. The operations are highly technical, and different methods are employed in different mills. The first operation is one of purification. The juice, as it comes from the rollers, carries such materials as glucose, salts, organic acids, and other impurities, that must be removed. For this, lime is the principal agent. The details of it all would be as tedious here as they are complicated in the mill. The percentages of the different impurities vary with the variation of the soils in which the cane is grown. The next step, following clarification, is evaporation, the boiling out of a large percentage of the water carried in the juice. For this purpose, a vacuum system is used, making possible a more rapid evaporation with a smaller expenditure of fuel. These two operations, clarification and evaporation by the use of the vacuum, are merely improved methods for doing, on a large scale, what was formerly done by boiling in pans or kettles, on a small scale. That method is still used in many parts of the world, and even in the United States, in a small way. For special reasons, it is still used on some of the Louisiana plantations; it is common in the farm production of sorghum molasses in the South; and in the manufacture of maple sugar in the North. In those places, the juices are boiled in open pans or kettles, the impurities skimmed off as they rise, and the boiling, for evaporation, is continued until a proper consistency is reached, for molasses in the case of sorghum and for crystallization in the case of plantation and maple sugars. There is an old story of an erratic New England trader, in Newburyport, who called himself Lord Timothy Dexter. In one of his shipments to the West Indies, a hundred and fifty years ago, this picturesque individual included a consignment of "warming pans," shallow metal basins with a cover and a long wooden handle, used for warming beds on cold winter nights. The basin was filled with coals from the fireplace, and then moved about between the sheets to take off the chill. He was not a little ridiculed by his acquaintances for sending such merchandise where it could not possibly be needed, but it is said that he made considerable money out of his enterprise. With the covers removed, the long-handled, shallow basins proved admirably adapted for use in skimming the sugar in the boiling-pans. But the old-fashioned method would be impossible today.

The different operations are too complicated and too technical for more than a reference to the purpose of the successive processes. Clarification and evaporation having been completed, the next step is crystallization, also a complicated operation. When this is done, there remains a dark brown mass consisting of sugar crystals and molasses, and the next step is the removal of all except a small percentage of the molasses. This is accomplished by what are called the centrifugals, deep bowls with perforated walls, whirled at two or three thousand revolutions a minute. This expels the greater part of the molasses, and leaves a mass of yellow-brown crystals, the coloring being due to the molasses remaining. This is the raw sugar of commerce. Most of Cuba's raw product is classed as "96 degree centrifugals," that is, the raw sugar, as it comes from the centrifugal machines and is bagged for shipment, is of 96 degrees of sugar purity. This is shipped to market, usually in full cargo lots. There it goes to the refineries, where it is melted, clarified, evaporated, and crystallized. This second clarification removes practically everything except the pure crystallized sugar of the market and the table. It is then an article of daily use in every household, and a subject of everlasting debate in Congress.

XIII

VARIOUS PRODUCTS AND INDUSTRIES

The Encyclopædia Britannica states that "although the fact has been controverted, there cannot be a doubt that the knowledge of tobacco and its uses came to the rest of the world from America. As the continent was opened up and explored, it became evident that the consumption of tobacco, especially by smoking, was a universal and immemorial usage, in many cases bound up with the most significant and solemn tribal ceremonials." The name "tobacco" was originally the name of the appliance in which it was smoked and not of the plant itself, just as the term "chowder" comes from the vessel (chaudière) in which the compound was prepared. The tobacco plant was first taken to Europe in 1558, by Francisco Fernandez, a physician who had been sent to Mexico by Philip II to investigate the products of that country. The English, however, appear to have been the first Europeans to adopt the smoking habit, and Sir Walter Raleigh was notable for his indulgence in the weed. He is said to have called for a solacing pipe just before his execution. Very soon after their arrival, in 1607, the Virginia settlers engaged in the cultivation of tobacco, and it soon became the most important commercial product of the colony. Smoking, as practiced in this country, appears to have been largely, and perhaps only, by means of pipes generally similar to those now in use. The contents of ancient Indian mounds, or tumuli, opened in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, show the use of pipes by the aborigines probably centuries before the discoveries by Columbus. Many were elaborately carved in porphyry or some other hard stone, while others were made of baked clay. Others, many of them also elaborately carved and ornamented, have been found in Mexico. Roman antiquities show many pipes, but they do not show the use of tobacco. It is assumed that they were used for burning incense, or for smoking some aromatic herb or hemp.

The first knowledge of the use of the plant in Cuba was in November, 1492, when Columbus, on landing near Nuevitas, sent his messengers inland to greet the supposed ruler of a supposed great Asiatic empire. Washington Irving thus reports the story as it was told by Navarete, the Spanish historian. Referring to those messengers, he says: "They beheld several of the natives going about with firebrands in their hands, and certain dried herbs which they rolled up in a leaf, and lighting one end, put the other in their mouths, and continued exhaling and puffing out the smoke. A roll of this kind they called a tobacco, a name since transferred to the plant of which the rolls were made. The Spaniards, although prepared to meet with wonders, were struck with astonishment at this singular and apparently nauseous indulgence." A few years later, a different method was reported, by Columbus, as employed in Hispaniola. This consisted of inhaling the fumes of the leaf through a Y-shaped device applied to the nostrils. This operation is said to have produced intoxication and stupefaction, which appears to have been the desired result. The old name still continues in Cuba, and if a smoker wants a cigar, he will get it by calling for a "tobacco." The production of the plant is, next to sugar, Cuba's most important commercial industry. Its early history is only imperfectly known. There was probably very little commercial production during the 16th Century, for the reason that there was then no demand for it. The demand came in the first half of the 17th Century, and by the middle of that period tobacco was known and used in practically all civilized countries. The demand for it spread very rapidly, in spite of papal fulminations and penal enactments. For a time, in Russia, the noses of smokers were cut off. The early part of the 18th Century saw Cuba actively engaged in production and shipment. In 1717, Cuba's tobacco was made a monopoly of the Spanish Government. Under that system, production was regulated and prices were fixed by the agents of the government, in utter disregard of the welfare of the producers. As a result, several serious riots occurred. In 1723, a large number of planters refused to accept the terms offered by the officials, and destroyed the crops of those who did accept, a condition repeated in the State of Kentucky a few years ago, the only difference being that in the Cuban experience the monopolist was the Government, and in Kentucky it was a corporation. A few years later, in 1734, the Cuban monopoly was sold to Don José Tallapiedra who contracted to ship to Spain, annually, three million pounds of tobacco. The contract was afterward given to another, but control was resumed by the Crown, in 1760. Finally, in 1817, cultivation and trade were declared to be free, subject only to taxation.

In time, it became known that the choicest tobacco in the market came from the western end of Cuba, from the Province of Pinar del Rio. It was given a distinct name, Vuelta Abajo, a term variously translated but referring to the downward bend of the section of the island in which that grade is produced. Here is grown a tobacco that, thus far, has been impossible of production elsewhere. Many experiments have been tried, in Cuba and in other countries. Soils have been analyzed by chemists; seeds from the Vuelta Abajo have been planted; and localities have been sought where climatic conditions corresponded. No success has been attained. Nor is the crop of that region produced on an extensive scale, that is, the choicer leaf. Not all of the tobacco is of the finest grade, although most of it is of high quality. There are what may be called "patches" of ground, known to the experts, on which the best is produced, for reasons not yet clearly determined. The fact is well known, but the causes are somewhat mysterious. Nor does the plant of this region appear to be susceptible of improvement through any modern, scientific systems of cultivation. The quality deteriorates rather than improves as a result of artificial fertilizers. The people of the region, cultivating this special product through generation after generation, seem to have developed a peculiar instinct for its treatment. It is not impossible that a time may come when scientific soil selection, seed selection, special cultivation, irrigation, and other systems, singly or in combination, will make possible the production of a standardized high-grade leaf in much greater quantity than heretofore, but it seems little probable that anything so produced will excel or even equal the best produced by these expert vegueros by their indefinable but thorough knowledge of the minutest peculiarities of this peculiar plant. Thus far, it has not even been possible to produce it elsewhere in the island. It has been tried outside of the fairly defined area of its production, tried by men who knew it thoroughly within that area, tried from the same seed, from soils that seem quite the same. But all failed. Science may some day definitely locate the reasons, just as it may find the reason for deterioration in the quality of Cuban tobacco eastward from that area. The tobacco of Havana Province is excellent, but inferior to that of Pinar del Rio. The growth of Santa Clara Province is of good quality, but inferior to that of Havana Province, while the tobacco of eastern Cuba is little short of an offence to a discriminating taste.

Tobacco is grown from seeds, planted in specially prepared seed beds. Seeding is begun in the early autumn. When the young plant has attained a proper height, about eight or ten inches, it is removed to, and planted in, the field of its final growth. This preliminary process demands skill, knowledge, and careful attention equal, perhaps, to the requirements of the later stages. Experiments have been made with mechanical appliances, but most of the work is still done by hand, particularly in the area producing the better qualities of leaf. From the time of transplanting, it is watched with the greatest care. A constant battle is waged with weeds and insect life, and water must be brought if the season is too dry. If rains are excessive, as they sometimes are, the crop may be partly or wholly destroyed, as it was in the autumn of 1914. The plant matures in January, after four months of constant watchfulness and labor, in cultivation, pruning, and protection from worms and insects. When the leaves are properly ripened, the stalks are cut in sections, two leaves to a section. These are hung on poles and taken to the drying sheds where they are suspended for three or more weeks. The time of this process, and its results, depend upon moisture, temperature, and treatment. All this is again an operation demanding expert knowledge and constant care. When properly cured, the leaves are packed in bales of about 110 pounds each, and are then ready for the market. Because of the varying conditions under which the leaf is produced, from year to year, it is somewhat difficult to determine with any accuracy the increase in the industry. Broadly, the output appears to have been practically doubled in the last twenty years, a growth attributed to the new economic conditions, to the extension of transportation facilities that have made possible the opening of new areas to cultivation, and to the investment of capital, largely American capital. The exports show, generally, a material increase in sales of leaf tobacco and some decline in sales of cigars. The principal market for the leaf, for about 85 per cent of it, is in the United States where it is made, with more or less honesty, into "all-Havana" cigars. This country, however, takes only about a third of Cuba's cigar output. The United Kingdom takes about as much of that product as we do, and Germany, in normal times, takes about half as much. The remainder is widely scattered, and genuine imported Havana cigars are obtainable in all countries throughout the world. The total value of Cuba's yearly tobacco crop is from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000, including domestic consumption and foreign trade.

The story that all Cubans, men and women alike, are habitual and constant smokers, is not and never was true. Whatever it may have been in the past, I am inclined to think that smoking by women is more common in this country than it is in Cuba, particularly among the middle and upper social classes. I have seen many American and English women smoke in public, but never a Cuban woman. Nor is smoking by men without its exceptions. I doubt if the percentage of non-smokers in this country is any greater than it is in the island. There are many Cubans who do smoke, just as there are many Americans, Englishmen, Germans, and Russians. Those who watch on the street for a respectable Cuban woman with a cigar in her mouth, or even a cigarette, will be disappointed. Cuba's tobacco is known by the name of the region in which it is produced; the Vuelta Abajo of Pinar del Rio; the Partidos of Havana Province; the Manicaragua and the Remedios of Santa Clara; and the Mayari of Oriente. Until quite recently, when American organized capital secured control of many of the leading factories in Cuba, it was possible to identify a cigar, in size and shape, by some commonly employed name, such as perfectos, conchas, panetelas, imperiales, londres, etc. The old names still appear, but to them there has been added an almost interminable list in which the old distinction is almost lost. Lost, too, or submerged, are many of the old well-known names of manufacturers, names that were a guarantee of quality. There were also names for different qualities, almost invariably reliable, and for color that was supposed to mark the strength of the cigar. An accomplished smoker may still follow the old system and call for a cigar to his liking, by the use of the old terms and names made familiar by years of experience, but the general run of smokers can only select, from a hundred or more boxes bearing names and words that are unfamiliar or unknown, a cigar that he thinks looks like one that he wants. It may be a "superba" an "imperial" a "Wilson's Cabinet," or a "Havana Kid."

There is a wide difference in the dates given as the time of the introduction of the coffee plant in Cuba. One writer gives the year 1720, another gives 1748, and still another gives 1769. Others give various years near the end of the century. It was doubtless a minor industry for fifty years or more before that time, but it was given an impetus and began to assume commercial proportions during the closing years of the 18th Century. During that century, the industry was somewhat extensively carried on in the neighboring island of Santo Domingo. In 1790, a revolution broke out in that island, including Haiti, and lasted, with more or less violent activity, for nearly ten years. One result was the emigration to Cuba of a considerable number of refugees, many of them French. They settled in eastern Cuba, where conditions for coffee-growing are highly favorable. Knowing that industry from their experience with it in the adjacent island, these people naturally took it up in their new home. The cultivation of coffee in Cuba, prior to that time, was largely in the neighborhood of Havana, the region then of the greater settlement and development. For the next forty years or so, the industry developed and coffee assumed a considerable importance as an export commodity, in addition to the domestic supply. In 1840, there were more than two thousand coffee plantations, large and small, producing more than seventy million pounds of coffee, the greater part of which was exported. From about the middle of the century, the industry declined, in part because of lower prices due to increase in the world-supply through increased production in other countries, and in part, because of the larger chance of profit in the growing of sugar, an industry then showing an increased importance. Coffee culture has never been entirely suspended in the island, and efforts are made from time to time to revive it, but for many years Cuba has imported most of its coffee supply, the larger share being purchased from Porto Rico. It would be easily possible for Cuba to produce its entire requirement. There are few more beautiful sights in all the world than a field of coffee trees in blossom. One writer has likened it to "millions of snow drops scattered over a sea of green." They blossom, in Cuba, about the end of February or early in March, the fruit season and picking coming in the autumn. Coffee culture is an industry requiring great care and some knowledge, and the preparation of the berry for the market involves no less of care and knowledge. The quality of the Cuban berry is of the best. It is the misfortune of the people of the United States that very few of them really know anything about coffee and its qualities, notwithstanding the fact that they consume about a billion pounds a year, all except a small percentage of it being coffee of really inferior quality. But coffee, like cigars, pickles, or music, is largely a matter of individual preference.

Cuba produces a variety of vegetables, chiefly for domestic consumption, and many fruits, some of which are exported. There is also a limited production of grains. Among the tubers produced are sweet potatoes, white potatoes, yams, the arum and the yucca. From the latter is made starch and the cassava bread. The legumes are represented by varieties of beans and peas. The most extensively used food of the island people is rice, only a little of which is locally grown. The imports are valued at five or six million dollars yearly. Corn is grown in some quantity, but nearly two million dollars worth is imported yearly from the United States. There are fruits of many kinds. The banana is the most important of the group, and is grown throughout the island. It appears on the table of all, rich and poor, sometimes au naturel but more frequently cooked. There are many varieties, some of which are exported while others are practically unknown here. The Cuban mango is not of the best, but they are locally consumed by the million. Only a few of the best are produced and those command a fancy price even when they are obtainable. The aguacate, or alligator pear, is produced in abundance. Cocoanuts are a product largely of the eastern end of the island, although produced in fair supply elsewhere. The trees are victims of a disastrous bud disease that has attacked them in recent years causing heavy loss to growers.

Since the American occupation, considerable attention has been given, mainly by Americans, to the production of oranges, grape-fruit, and pineapples, in which a considerable industry has been developed. There are several varieties. The guava of Cuba makes a jelly that is superior to that produced from the fruit in any other land of my experience. If there is a better guava jelly produced anywhere, I should be pleased to sample it, more pleased to obtain a supply. But there is a difference in the product even there, just as there is a difference in currant or grape jelly produced here. It depends a good deal on the maker. Some of the best of my experience is made in the neighborhood of Santa Clara, but I have tried no Cuban jalea de guayaba that was not better than any I have had in the Far East or elsewhere. The guanabana is eaten in its natural state, but serves its best purpose as a flavor for ices or cooling drinks. There are a number of others, like the anon, the zapote, the granadilla, the mamey, etc., with which visitors may experiment or not as they see fit. Some like some of them and others like none of them. An excellent grade of cacao, the basis of chocolate and cocoa, is produced in somewhat limited quantity. The industry could easily be extended. In fact, there are many soil products not now grown in the island but which might be grown there, and many others now produced on small scale that could be produced in important quantities. That they are not now so produced is due to lack of both labor and capital. The industries of Cuba are, and always have been, specialized. Sugar, tobacco, and at a time coffee, have absorbed the capital and have afforded occupation for the greater number of the island people. The lack of transportation facilities in earlier years, and the system of land tenure, have made difficult if not impossible the establishment of any large number of independent small farmers. The day laborers in the tobacco fields and on sugar plantations have been unable to save enough money to buy a little farm and equip it even if the land could be purchased at all. Yet only a very small percentage of the area is actually under cultivation. Cuba now imports nearly $40,000,000 worth of alimentary substances, altogether too much for a country of its productive possibilities. It is true that a part of this, such as wheat flour for instance, cannot be produced on the island successfully, and that other commodities, such as rice, hog products, and some other articles, can be imported more cheaply than they can be produced locally. But the imports of foodstuffs are undoubtedly excessive, although there are good reasons for the present situation. It is a matter that will find adjustment in time.

The island has mineral resources of considerable value, although the number of products is limited. The Spanish discoverers did not find the precious metals for which they were seeking, and while gold has since been found, it has never appeared in quantity sufficient to warrant its exploitation. Silver discoveries have been reported, but not in quantity to pay for its extraction. Nothing is ever certain in those industries, but it is quite safe to assume that Cuba is not a land of precious metals. Copper was discovered in eastern Cuba as early as about the year 1530, and the mines near Santiago were operated as a Government monopoly for some two hundred years, when they were abandoned. They were idle for about a hundred years when, in 1830, an English company with a capital of $2,400,000 reopened them. It is officially reported that in the next forty years copper of a value of more than $50,000,000 was extracted and shipped. During that time, the mines were among the most notable in the world. In the meantime, ownership was transferred to a Spanish corporation organized in Havana. This concern became involved in litigation with the railway concerning freight charges, and this experience was followed by the Ten Years' War, in the early course of which the plant was destroyed and the mines flooded. In 1902, an American company was organized. It acquired practically all the copper property in the Cobre field and began operations on an extensive and expensive scale. A huge sum was spent in pumping thousands of tons of water from a depth of hundreds of feet, in new equipment for the mining operations, and in the construction of a smelter. The best that can be done is to hope that the investors will some day get their money back. Without any doubt, there is a large amount of copper there, and more in other parts of Oriente. So is there copper in Camaguey, Santa Clara, and Matanzas provinces. There are holes in the ground near the city of Camaguey that indicate profitable operations in earlier years. The metal is spread over a wide area in Pinar del Rio, and venturous spirits have spent many good Spanish pesos and still better American dollars in efforts to locate deposits big enough to pay for its excavation. Some of that class are at it even now, and one concern is reported as doing a profitable business.

The bitumens are represented in the island by asphalt, a low-grade coal, and seepages of petroleum. At least, several writers tell of coal in the vicinity of Havana, but the substance is probably only a particularly hard asphaltum. The only real coal property of which I have any knowledge is a quite recent discovery. The story was told me by the man whose money was sought to develop it. It was, by the way, an anthracite property. In response to an urgent invitation from a presumably reliable acquaintance, my friend took his car and journeyed westward into Pinar del Rio, through a charming country that he and I have many times enjoyed together. He picked up his coal-discovering friend in the city of Pinar del Rio, and proceeded into the country to inspect the coal-vein. At a number of points immediately alongside the highway, his companion alighted to scrape away a little of the surface of the earth and to return with a little lump of really high-grade anthracite. Such a substance had no proper business there, did not belong there geologically or otherwise. The explanation soon dawned upon my friend. They were following the line of an abandoned narrow-gauge railway, abandoned twenty years ago, along which had been dumped, at intervals, little piles of perfectly good anthracite, imported from Pennsylvania, for use by the portable engine used in the construction of the road. My friend declares that he is entirely ready at any time to swear that there are deposits of anthracite in Cuba. A very good quality of asphalt is obtained in different parts of the island, and considerable quantities have been shipped to the United States. Signs of petroleum deposits have been strong enough to induce investigation and expenditure. An American company is now at work drilling in Matanzas Province. The most extensive and promising mineral industry is iron, especially in eastern Cuba. Millions of tons of ore have been taken from the mountains along the shore between Santiago and Guantanamo, and the supply appears to be inexhaustible. The product is shipped to the United States, to a value of several millions of dollars yearly. A few years ago, other and apparently more extensive deposits were discovered in the northern section of Oriente, The field bought by the Pennsylvania Steel Company is estimated to contain 600,000,000 tons of ore. The Bethlehem Steel Company is the owner of another vast tract. The quality of these ores is excellent. In Oriente Province also are deposits of manganese of which considerable shipments have been made.

It is not possible in so brief a survey of Cuba's resources and industries to include all its present activities, to say nothing of its future possibilities. At the present time, the island is practically an extensive but only partly cultivated farm, producing mainly sugar and tobacco, with fruits and vegetables as a side line. The metal deposits supplement this, with promise of becoming increasingly valuable. The forest resources, commercially, are not great, although there are, and will continue to be, sales of mahogany and other fine hardwoods. Local manufacturing is on a comparatively limited scale. All cities and many towns have their artisans, the bakers, tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, and others. Cigar making is, of course, classed as a manufacturing enterprise, and so, for census purposes, is the conversion of the juice of the sugar-cane into sugar. A number of cities have breweries, ice factories, match factories, soap works, and other establishments large or small. All these, however, are incidental to the great industries of the soil, and the greater part of Cuba's requirements in the line of mill and factory products is imported. While little is done in the shipment of cattle or beef, Cuba is a natural cattle country. Water and nutritious grasses are abundant, and there are vast areas, now idle, that might well be utilized for stock-raising. There are, of course, just as there are elsewhere, various difficulties to be met, but they are met and overcome. There are insects and diseases, but these are controlled by properly applied scientific methods. There is open feeding throughout the entire year, so there is no need of barns or hay. The local cattle industry makes possible the shipment of some $2,500,000 worth of hides and skins annually. Other lines of industry worthy of mention, but not possible of detailed description here, include sponges, tortoise shell, honey, wax, molasses, and henequen or sisal. All these represent their individual thousands or hundreds of thousands of dollars, and their employment of scores or hundreds of wage-earners. Those who start for Cuba with a notion that the Cubans are an idle and lazy people, will do well to revise that notion. There is not the hustle that may be seen further north, but the results of Cuban activity, measured in dollars or in tons, fairly dispute the notion of any national indolence. When two and a half million people produce what is produced in Cuba, somebody has to work.

XIV

POLITICS, GOVERNMENT, AND COMMERCE

The British colonists in America were in large measure self-governing. This is notably true in their local affairs. The Spanish colonists were governed almost absolutely by the mother-country. A United States official publication reports that "all government control centred in the Council of the Indies and the King, and local self government, which was developed at an early stage in the English colonies, became practically impossible in the Spanish colonies, no matter to what extent it may have existed in theory. Special regulations, decrees, etc., modifying the application of the laws to the colonies or promulgating new laws were frequent, and their compilation in 1680 was published as Law of the Indies. This and the Siete Partidas, on which they were largely based, comprised the code under which the Spanish-American colonies were governed." There was a paper provision, during the greater part of the time, for a municipal electorate, the franchise being limited to a few of the largest tax-payers. In its practical operation, the system was nullified by the power vested in the appointed ruler. It was a highly effective centralized organization in which no man held office, high or low, who was not a mere instrument in the hands of the Governor-General. Under such an institution the Cubans had, of course, absolutely no experience in self-government. The rulers made laws and the people obeyed them; they imposed taxes and spent the money as they saw fit; many of them enriched themselves and their personally appointed official household throughout the island, at the expense of the tax-payers.