Evening star., 1899-02-09

wealth. Taken on the average enough rain
falls all over Cuba to supply all the mois-
ture that vegetation needs. Most of it falls
between May to November, and there is
not enough during the winter months,
which are the crop season. Gunes equal
lied this uneven distribution by its system
of irrigation, and became the garden of the
island.
The canals have not fallen into complete
disuse, but in the universal distress they
have been neglected. | suppose in time the
system will be enlarged. When this Is done
il NAV be that handful OF either Of the
red or the black soil will be valuable
n handful of gold dust. 1t used to be that
a caballeria of land anywhere in the valley
was so valuable that nobody knew its price
because nobody ever thought of selling. If
they did the value was usually said to be
So 900 for caballeria, POGO mas o menos,
more or less" II was generally more in
stead of less. Now, l imagine that more
definite figures could be had, for two rea-
sons. One is that some land owners, who
have a great many caballerias, lack money.
The second reason is that many caballerlaS
lack hands to cultivate them.
PrOductiveness of the Land.
About the productiveness Of the land
there are one or two salient features. 1t
need hardly be stated that the soil pro-
duces boniatas or sweet potatoes and other
native vegetables for home consumption all
the year around In the commercial sense
potatoes and two crops of onions are grown
and marketed every season. That is an
absolute certainty. Not interfered with by
weather or other cause. The Spanish pro-
duoe dealer who showed me through his
warehouse had one end of 1t filed with
onions, while the other part was filled with
barrels of seed potatoes, which had come
from the United States. In the tall he
plants the Early Rose and gets his crop in
ten weeks. After that is a different variety
which is dug up in March and shipped TO
the states before the spring planting there
has begun. The two crops of onions are
handled in a similar way In some OF the
sugar cane lands both potatoes and onions
are raised while the cane is growing. The
same piece of land in a single year may
produce two crops of onions ana potatoes
and one crop of cane. AS a rule the cul-
tivation of the vegetables is carried on in
separate tracts. This dealer told me that
Guines lost 100000 this winter in its onion
and potato crop because of the inability OF
the people to plow their lands and 10 plant
them. They had neither oxen nor seed.
do not know much about corn, though
/ have heard the Nebraska, the Iowa and
the Missouri man tell stories of corn fields
which reached up to the Sky and yielded
million bushels to the acre. more or leSs
In spite of the wonderful richness or the
soil, the properties of the atmosphere ana
the climate that kind of corn is not grown
in Cuba What is grown is pretty fair
sort of maize on which the ear is smaller
than With the corn OF t1e lthlDNidtt III
mate 1t makes very good eornmeaL
sweeter than that which is had in the
states Apparently the nutritive qualities
are not so good 1t has its uses as part
of domestic producti6n for domestic con-
SUMPTION, but will not come in competi-
t;on with American corn. In the economy
of the nlantations and the farms IL is use
full. The oxen like II as feed. and II can
he produced in sufficient quantities without
taking too much land which is more Valu-
able for other purposes
A Cuban who talked as enthusiastically
nc II he had been raised I'm the corn belt
of Illinois drew some glowing pictures of
its possibilities in Cuba. A New Yorker
who I supposed had his farm education
on Broadway, asked some questions which
brought out the facts From these ii ap-
pears that thrse crops of passably good
corn for domestic use can be had from the
Cuban soil, but 1T is not safe to count on
more than two either in the tobacco lands
or in the regions which are given over to
other products. This American, after show
ing his knowledge of practical farming,
told me that he used to own a corn field in
the heart of Wichita, Kan That was in
the boom days, when city lots extended
twenty-one miles out into the country.
This American is coming to Guines to raise
potatoes and onions. He says there is more
money in 1t than in picking up gold mug
gets in the Klondike.
Conditions the Same Elsewhere.
These are few Of the features of one