Our War with Spain for Cuba's Freedom

een of the Cuban Fore

cco Industry-Tropica

in Cuba-Enormous Sh

of the

ill remaining perfectly wild and uncultivated, nearly 13,000,000 are uncleared forest. Mahogany and other hard woods, such as the Cuban ebon

aracter and beauty to the scenery. The royal palm is the most common variety, and frequently grows to a height of one hundred and twenty feet, the branches n

h is stripped off and dried, forming a narrow, thin board, which the natives use for the walls of their cottages. The boughs are sometimes made to serve for roofing, though palm leaves are usually used for this purpose, as wel

FRUITS IN

, pineapples, oranges, lemons and bread-fruit all grow in a

on trip to Cuba, wrote a charming description of a fru

the tree), being in clusters of a hundred, more or less, tipped at the same time by a single, pendent, glutinous bud, nearly as large as a pineapple. The date palm, so suggestive of the far east, and the only one we had seen in Cuba, was represented by a choice specimen, imported in its youth. There was also the star-apple tree, remarkable for its uniform and graceful shape, full of green fruit, with here and there a ripening specimen; so, also, was the favorite zapota, its

more to examine his beautiful specimens of bananas, which, with its sister fruit, the plantain, forms so important a staple of fruit in Cuba and throughout all tropical regions. It seems that the female banana tree bears more fruit than the male, but not so large. The average clusters of the former comprise here about one hundred, but the latter rarely bears over sixty or seventy distinct specimens of the cucumber-shaped product. From the center of its large, broad leaves, which gather at the top, when it has reached the height of twelve or fifteen feet, there springs forth a large purple bud ten inches long, shaped like a huge acorn, though more po

ACCO IN

," under government contract, but during that year the "Factoria de Tobacco" was established in Havana by the government. The tobacco was classified as superior, medium and inferior, and was received from

anufacture, the cigars cost the government seventy-five cents per pound; snuff, fine grain and good color, forty-three cents, and common soft, or Seville, nineteen cents a pound in Havana. In good years, wh

rior of the island; that is, in the country, where the royal monopoly did not extend. The maintenance of 120 slaves and the expenses of manufacture did not exceed $12,000 yearly; but the salaries of the officers of the

more active than that in cigars. The tobacco of the Vuelta de Abajo is the most celebrated, but large quantities are exported which are produced in other parts of the island. The cultivation of tobacco has been one of the most uncertain branches of industry in Cuba. Trammeled by restrictions and exactions, it was confined almost entirely to the poorer classes

AND ITS C

hed in 1885, when the sugar industry was in its best d

tation, which will afterwards continue fruitful for years, by very simple processes of renewal. When thoroughly ripe the cane is of a light golden yellow, streaked here and there with red. The top is dark green, with long, narrow leaves depending, very much like those of the corn stalk, from the cente

ter seeming to be nature's most direct mode of supplying us with the article. The Cuban planters have one advantage over all other sugar-cane producing countries, in the great and inexhaustible fertility of the soil of the island. For instance, one or two hogsheads of sugar to the acre is considered a good yield in Jamaica, but in Cuba three hogsheads are the average. Fertilizing of any sort is rarely employed in the cane fields, while in beet

it to market than could be realized for the manufactured article. Had the price of sugar remained this year at a figure which would afford the planters a fair profit, it might have been the means of tiding over the chasm of bankruptcy which has long stared them in the face, and upon the brink of which they now stand. But with a more than average

l, and the time when the heat and the rain spoils its qualities, all the sugar for the season must be made, hence the necessity for great industry on large estates. In Louisiana the grinding lasts but about eight weeks. In Cuba it contin

through a garden of plenty, equally impressed by the magnificent extent, and the profuse fertility of the estates, whose palm avenues, plantain orchards, and cane fields succeed each ot

fugal process of sugar making, the molasses passes into a large vat, by the side of which is a row of double cylinders, the outer one of solid metal, the inner of wire gauze. These cylinders revolve each on an axis attached by a horizontal wheel and band to a shaft which communicates with the central engine. The molasses is ladled out into the spaces between the external and internal cylinders, and the axes are set in motion at the rate of n

S BEEN ROBB

er Cuban possessions may be gained from the following quotation from "

are tr

treasury. Our opulence dates from that period. We had already sufficient negro s

1864 we continued to send yearly to the mother country two millions and a half of the same stuff. According to several Spanish statisticians, these sums amounted, in 1864, to $89,107,287. We were very rich, don't you see? trem

e ranches, 18 cocoa plantations, 35 cotton plantations, 22,748, produce farms, 11,737 truck farms, 11,541 tobacco plantations, 1,731 apiaries, 153 country resorts, 243 distilleries, 468 tile works, 504 lime kilns, 63 charcoal furnaces, 54 cassava-bread

hers. We do not need it, we are wading deep in rivers of gold. If the fertility of our soil did not come to our rescue, we must, perforce, have become enriched by the system of protection to the commerce of the mother country. ... The four columns of the tariff are indeed a sublime invention.. Our agricultural industries require foreign machinery, tools and utensils, which Spain d

, to be dissipated in Madrid, and which appear never to disturb their consciences. This country is very rich, incalculably rich. In 1830 we contributed $6,120,934

ons, who contribute to the public charges, and never receive a cent in exchange, who have given as much as $92 per capita, and who at the present