Cuba is, first and last, an agricultural country. The climate, soil, and proximity to favorable markets, create unusually favorable conditions. The recent extensions of the railroad system, and the additions to the calsadas, or government highways, of which one thousand miles were built in the last year, have greatly improved the facilities for interior transportation. The Government has established experiment stations, and in other ways encouraged farming and stock raising; railroad and development companies have extended generous aid in the same direction. Millions have been sunk, during late years, in organized efforts to promote agricultural industries in different parts of the Island, aside from the investments in sugar and tobacco. But, notwithstanding, agriculture has not advanced in Cuba at anything like the rate that should have been experienced.{217} Before the last war there were upwards of one hundred thousand plantations, ranches, and farms in the country, of which the value was not less than $200,000,000. Very few of these properties were made to yield adequately. Among the sugar and tobacco estates, good management was the exception, rather than the rule. Despite the natural advantages that he enjoyed, or perhaps because of them, the Cuban farmer hardly ever made the most of his opportunities, nor displayed a respectable degree of enterprise. It is true that he labored under heavy handicaps in the political and economic conditions, but since these drawbacks have been removed he has not shown any marked improvement. Nor has any great advance in agricultural development followed the introduction of American capital and American settlers, save in the sugar and tobacco industries. The former has often been misapplied, and the latter do not appear to have gained a grasp of the situation.
That something is radically wrong in the state of Cuban agriculture is made glaringly apparent by the fact that the country imports annually $25,000,000 worth of foodstuffs that it might produce. Not only that, but several{218} of the items that make up this aggregate represent products that might be raised in Cuba to an extent sufficient to supply the domestic demand and leave a considerable surplus for exportation. It is not to be supposed, however, that under present conditions any such results are possible. The Cubans might do much more than they are doing to make their country productive, but until the population is greatly increased no approximation to the utmost agricultural possibilities can be attained. Estimates differ widely as to the extent of the area under cultivation, but it is certainly a very small proportion of that adapted to agriculture.
Although the soil is distinctly suitable to such treatment, intensive cultivation and scientific methods are practised only in a few places, and by foreigners, the usual proceeding is to plant over an extended tract, burning the fields in the dry season and leaving the ashes on the ground. When the rains have sufficiently moistened the earth, holes are made in it with a pointed stick, called a jan, and into the holes are dropped the seed or root from which the crop is to be derived. This method continuously robs the soil of the elements in{219} which its fertility consists and at length it becomes “tired,” as the natives say. It is then necessary to fertilize the ground, or to abandon its cultivation. The farmer usually adopts the latter alternative and, moving into the forest, clears another tract and starts a fresh finca, to be treated by the same process. This is what the scientific agriculturalist Liebeg termed “a system of cultivation by expoliation.”
The great difficulty in Cuba is that, in proportion to the land available, there is little labor, and less capital. The most complete and effective remedy will, of course, be found in an increase of the population, but in the meanwhile conditions would be greatly improved if the Cubans could be taught to handle their lands more intelligently and with greater energy. There is no man on earth more susceptible to an object lesson than the Cuban. Abstruse theories are slow to penetrate his mind, but he readily grasps the significance of a visible exposition. For this reason it is believed that the experiment stations, of which there are now half a dozen or more in the Island, will not be without effect in promoting better farming.{220}
Nearly all the crops of northern latitudes may be raised satisfactorily upon the uplands of Cuba. It is questionable, however, whether wheat, barley, and oats, would be as profitable crops as some others to which the ground might be devoted. Corn of an indifferent quality is widely grown and fed to stock. There seems to be no reason why the very best varieties of this grain should not be produced on Cuban soil, and efforts are being made to induce farmers to use selected seed and better methods in the cultivation. Two crops a year are secured and, unfortunately, the ground is often sown continuously in corn for long periods. Rotation is something that the Cuban farmer has yet to appreciate. On the lands about the coast, a great deal of rice is raised, but the domestic consumption of this cereal is very large and there is no surplus for export. This is, however, one of the crops which might be increased without any extraordinary effort, and the United States market would be open to the importation of all the excess product.
Another instance of neglected opportunity is found in the potato. The Cuban tuber, which has only recently been introduced to the United States, is of excellent quality and might be{221} made a serious rival of the famous Bermuda potato. Two crops a year, with an enormous yield to the acre, are harvested, but the output is far from reaching the quantity that could be profitably marketed. At the present time the United States is sending yearly to Cuba potatoes to more than twice the value of all the vegetables received from the Island, and the quality of the imported article is far from as good as that of the domestic product. Cuba also buys beans annually to the value of more than two hundred thousand dollars, despite the fact that every variety of this vegetable grows abundantly in almost any part of the Island, and with little cultivation. The natives consume large quantities of beans, and should not only grow all that they eat, but also ship considerable amounts to the ready markets which are open for them. An excellent quality of sweet potato will grow almost anywhere in the Island, with a large yield to the acre. The yam, a large variety of sweet potato, abounds everywhere, and with a little cultivation the quality could be improved to the point of creating an export demand.
There is very little cultivation of beets, but where they are raised the quality is so unusu{222}ally good and the yield so great, that it is believed beet culture might with ordinary effort be made one of the leading agricultural industries of the Island. In fact, the question of beet-sugar production has been raised more than once, but naturally enough it has not met with encouragement in a country where the beet is anathema.
It has been demonstrated that two crops a year of the highest grade of peanuts can be raised in Cuba. It is claimed that the largest recorded production to the acre of the nut has been secured by a Cuban planter. There are great possibilities in this industry, but it does not appear to be systematically carried on anywhere in the Island, and the peanut has no place in the statistics of exports. Mention has been made elsewhere of Cuba’s great need of comparatively small manufacturing enterprises and the benefits that might be expected to accrue from them. The peanut affords an opportunity in this direction. It is practically certain that several factories for the extraction of the oil and the manufacture of the butter could be run in the Island with profit, especially if the factories maintained their own plantations for the supply of the raw material.{223}
None of the vegetables are cultivated to the extent which they might be with profit. Cuba should export fresh vegetables in large quantities to the New York market, where the winter and spring demands are insatiable. Cucumbers, radishes, onions, lettuce, and other table delicacies grow all the year round in the Island. And instead of producing and shipping them, as she should, Cuba is even importing cabbage. The Chinese truck-gardeners are the only people in the Island who appear to have any understanding of intensive and careful cultivation, if we except a few foreigners who have not yet had sufficient experience to produce the results which they are aiming at, and which they will doubtless achieve in time.
All classes of Cubans eat quantities of plantain. The vegetable is rarely absent from the table, where it appears i............