The times., 1899-07-30

| plants six or eight feet high, 1t Is discour-
| aging, to say the least, to see them sud-
denly droop and fade. He cuts into the
stems of a few of them several inches
above the ground. and finds a fragile lace
work of fibre where healthy cells full of
sap should be, the work of the industrious
and tasteful yivijagua AS these plants
| are, so are all the rest in the field, and the
| whole crop is a failure.
| Equally voracious is the cachaga, an
| other insect that assails tobacco and makes
the planters life a burden. 1t domiciles
itself at the roots of the leaves and feeds
upon the stalks. twisting the outer edge
of the leaves as it eats its ny along them
| into little tunnels, 10 shelter rapidly
| increasing family. Another pest is Ioath-
! some verde" little green worm. the
identical shade of the leaf through which
| it travels, leaving nothing behind but the
midrib. At fat, jointed worm, shaded from
! pale green to yellow, big around as your
| thumb. and several inches long, eats like
the lean kline of Egypt, but, luckily, are
not so numerous. The 'rosequilla' gets
| into the hearts of the buds and multi
| plies SO amazingly that in twenty-four
| hours the plant is total wreck. And
| there are others, too many to enumerate.
To rid the vega of these animalculae, the
| surest way is TO pick them off by hand;
| and when the prayers to San Marcial have
not brought relief, the tropical night some
times witnesses strange scene-a process
| sion of all the hands on the place. headed
by the owner and tailed by the overseer,
! each with tiny lamp attached to his shirt
! front, moving with slow regularity down
the long drills Of the field, "bugging" the
I plants.
Though for two long centuries the Vuelta
Abajo was Cuba's Klondike, yielding
enough tobacco for the island factories to
send out about 250 000, 900 cigars a year,
there has not been sufficient tobacco raised
| in Cuba of late to supply the home de-
mand. Everybody remembers Weyler' S
celebrated decree of &C. forbidding the ex-
portation of Cuban tobacco, and how the
insurgents got even with him by burning
the crops, green and growing. and all the
stored tobacco they could lay hands on.
1t is estimated that more than forty mil
lion pounds of the very best tobacco in
the world was thus wantonly destroyed.
The Marquis de Teneriffe, who seldom act
ed without deliberation, had his reasons
for the order. He knew that the war was
largely carried on by Cuban cigarmakers
in Tampa and Key West, every one Of
whom gave literally from his weekly wage
| to the cause of national liberty. To pro-
hibit the export of the leaf would throw all
these men out of employment and deprive
the insurgents Of an important source OF
revenue. Weyler also believed that dealers
and manufacturers in the United States
would purchase all the tobacco on hand in
Cuba and force the Habana factories to
close And so it happened. Americans did
buy up all they could get before the de-
cree, purposely delayed in the execution,
took effect The shrewd captain general
had private schemes OF his own to serve
in the same connection; and he served them
so well that in spite of starving Cuba and
impoverishing Spain, he left the island a
multi millionaire. Under pretence of some
diplomatic transactions between Washing
ton and Madrid, tobacco continued to be
exported by the thousands of bales rs long
as any remained on the island, in the face
of the prohibitive decree; and on every
pound of il Weyler pocketed liberal COM
mission.
After the plantations were ruined the
great factories OF Habana some of which
employed from 100 to 1000 men and girls,
! had to shut up for want of leaf to work on; ;
the Florida cigar towns were filled with
hundreds OF idle, half-starved Cubans, and
the insurgent army felt keenly its loss of
revenue from that source The proprietor
of La Honrades" told me that before the
decree his factory made up 5000 pounds of
tobacco every day, the average daily out
put being 10000 cigars. 1t nearly broke
| his heart to have to play into Weyler's
| hands, so to say, by discharging his en-
ployes, knowing that all would suffer and
| many actually starye to death; but what
else could he do, being himself face to
! face with destitution? After the insur-
gents had destroyed the plantations and
stored tobacco, a little continued to be
| raised, perhaps one-tenth of the usual
crop, in the backyards OF fortified villages
and in the zonas de cultvo, designated by
! Weyler for the planting of gardens to sus-
| tain the reconcenuados-for to give the
evil one his due, l do not believe that the
arch murderer deliberately intended to
send the people to the dooom that befel
/ them.
Happily, those days OF darkness and ter
ror are ended, and Cuba, for the first time
in her history, is at liberty to make the
! best of her resources. But the twentieth
| century will be well advanced before the
| famous Vuelta Abaio can flourish again
| as of yore. Whole towns have been wiped
out. and so per cent of the people are in
their graves. Neither American occupation
| nor absolute independence can fill the place
| of the Spanish tobacco trade in Cuba, or
what it might have been without excessive
/! taxation, the close alliance of the island
| with the old "Compania Generate Tobacos''
yielding an enormous revenue to both Gov
ernments. The future OF tobacco produc-
| tion in the island is as uncertain as that
of the Alaskan Klondike. Soon as Amer
lean control was assured, after the sign
ing of the protocol, tobacco buyers and
manufactures made advances to the
vegueros, but too late to accomplish much
| that year.
This year, if excessive rains do not in
jure the crop they will do considerably
better. Some sanguine manufacturers who
have watched the ups and downs of tobacco
for half a lifetime, assert that the old
output, worth $50 0O0,0O0 year, will soon
be doubled in Cuba. while others are
equally strong in the opinion that the in
| dustry, as a national affair, is practically
| dead as doornail" Since the war for
eign capital has been interested in Cuban
tobacco. and wealthy syndicates have rur-
chased lands and factories. The area Of its
cultivation has been enlarged; but not al
ways with best results, for tobacco, like
coffee, is very particular about its environ
ments. Two years ago the celebrated
Henry Clay Company, of Havana, tried the
experiment of tohacco-raising in the Isle
of Pines. but, for some unknown reason,
the soil there is not suitable, and the
product was almost unstable in quality.
Americans who are not thoroughly trained
in the whole business of tobacco growing
would decidedly better turn their atten-
ton to something else.
FANNIE BRIGHAM WARD.
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