The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1869-06-12

A3ff5f1E gtAC EcArsAAN~ "a NOAtSe~ SAAe5
as to-day very considerable share
If nubIic attention and interest in
orr community, we have thought
Il we'll to lay before our readers
sueeinct statement of what Cuba |
really is, physically, geographical
II. agriculturally and financially.
including the circumjacent keys
and reefs, her superfcies is about
100000 acres, of which at least
toI,r.ffths are lands of almost IN
surpassed fertility. Her cultiva-
ID tracts, however, are compare
lively very few, the entire extent
which produces crops being under
two million acres, her virgin woods |
and natural pasturages embracing
some fifteen million acres. The
lands on which her crops of su-
rar. coffee, and tobacco are raised
are in most cases cleared land
With this very Insignificant pro-
norton of the soil under cultiva-
ton, Cuba produces crops to the
extent of not less than S130, 000,-
600 per annnm. In this amount,
sugar, the great staple of the is
land, figures to the sum of 60 or 10
million, tobacco to some 15 or 16
million, and coffee to about So
100000. For the production of
sugar, probably no other lands in
the world are SO admirably adapt
ed, both from their character and
geographical position. While the
louisiana planter is obliged to re-
plant his fields every year, there
are many sugar estates in Cuba
which yield enormous crops con
secutively from 40 or 90 years
without replanting. Sugar is cul-
tiVated more or less all over the
island, but the most important
sugar districts are in the jurisdic-
tons of Cardenas, Matanzas, Sa-
qua, and Remedies on the north
sides, and Cienfuegos, Trinidad
and Santiago on the south. The
sugar estates are owned al
most entire by native Oubans,
with the exception of a few large
ones, belonging to some of the
wealthy Spaniards of Havana.
The coffee crop is obtained al
most exclusively from the extreme
eastern end of the island, in the
billy districts lying back from the
ports of Santiago de Cuba and
Guantanamo. Formerly coffee
was extensively cultivated in the
Vuelta de Abaj0-that is, in the
districts ON the south coast lying
west of Havana; but the price of
the article falling some 80 years
ago to about four cents a pound,
the planters began to abandon
their plantations and transfer
their slaves to the districts back
of Matanzas and CardenaS, where
good uncleared sugar lands were
cheap, and devoted themselves to
the cultivation of sugar. Sugar,
moreover, offers many advantages
over coffee planting, both to large
and small capitalists. In the first
place, sugar cane can be cut eight
months after planted, whereas the
coffee plant bears only in tht
third or fourth years Of its growth
thereby excluding persons 0
small capital; and, secondly, b.
the season good or bad, too we
or too dry, cane always yields some
proceeds, while the coffee plante.
is always exposed to the danger o
losing the whole of his crop by al
rnseasonably heavy rain while tn
bush is in flower.
The Cuba coffee planters of tc
day about Guantanamo and San
iago arein l;owise related to thos
who abandoned their coffee plan
tations ia the western part Of tn
island. They are, lii fact, almos
adiStinct race, both III origin an
language. They are mostly d'
seendants of families driven GU
of Santo Domingo at the time G
the revolution, who, finding Ian!
emiRently suited for coffee plant
ing, transferred their industria
pursuits and social institutions t
Cuba. Even now French is tn
almost universal language o
these estates, both among til
owners and their slaves. As a
agricultural pursuit, coffee plan
ing is infinitely preferable to 81
gar making. The estates are gel
orally on elevated and billy lands
free from the intense heat of th
low, seething sugar districts; th
nights are always deliciously coo
and the labor is infinitely les
severe to the field hands. =