Tobacco seed is sown in carefully prepared beds during the month of September. About sixty days later the young plants are set out in the field with eighteen inches of space between each. Constant pruning and weeding are necessary in order to insure a healthy and vigorous growth. At the same time the tobacco worm and leaf slug must be picked off as fast as they appear on the plant.
In January the plants are cut and the leaves hung to dry. When thoroughly dried, the leaves are petuned, or sprinkled with a solution of tobacco water until fermentation has taken place. The leaves are then roughly sorted with regard to size and quality, assembled in bunches, or hands, and packed in bales, each weighing about 125 pounds.
It is estimated that over one hundred thousand persons in Cuba are engaged in the tobacco industry, and that eighty thousand of these are employed in the commercial cultivation of the leaf. One man is generally able to properly look after two acres, which will contain 15,000 plants.
The cost of cultivation varies considerably in different parts of the Island and under different conditions. In the Province of Pinar del Rio the cost of preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting, care, rent, and general services, will approximate $8,000 for one caballeria, or 33½ acres. The yield from such a tract will average 211 tercios, or bales, with a value of $50 each; 54 arrobas (1,350 pounds) of seed, worth $216; and about $20 worth of stems. So that the output would fetch approximately $10,800, leaving $2,800 profit to the grower.
Mr. Gustavo Bock, an owner and manufacturer of the greatest experience, puts the matter in a different form. His statement, as quoted in Industrial Cuba, follows:
“To produce 100 bales of tobacco, of 50 kilos each, a farmer would rent one caballeria of land, one half of which he would employ for tobacco cultivation and the remainder for vegetables.
| Rent of land per year | $300 |
| 250,000 plants at $1.50 per thousand | 375 |
| 6,250 pounds of Peruvian fertilizer | 250 |
| Hiring of oxen | 102 |
| Wages and maintenance of 12 men at $25 per month each | 3,000 |
| Yaguas, Majaguas, and expenses | 300 |
| Taxes, physician’s bills and medicines, and living expenses of the planter and his family | 400 |
| Total | $4,727 |
“So that a planter would have to sell each 50 kilos of tobacco at $47.27 to cover the cost of production. The foregoing figures show clearly that the production of tobacco in the Island of Cuba is more expensive than that in any other part of the world, especial attention being necessary to its raising from the day it is planted to the cutting of the leaf, besides the subsequent treatment necessary in order to obtain good leaf; which goes on day and night if a good quality is desired.”
The use of cover, of course, entails additional expenses, but it also produces greater results and larger profits. The cloth awning, which is stretched over the field at a height of six or eight feet, has the effect of tempering the strength of the sun’s rays, moderating the force of the wind and diminishing its detrimental action on the leaves, keeping the soil moist, and excluding the insects that prey upon the plant. Thus, aside from the improvement in the product produced by the use of cover, there is a substantial saving in labor secured.