There is here an excellent opportunity for foreign capital. One or two such companies as have successfully developed new tracts in our Western States would find a profitable enterprise in the business of supplying Cuba’s food demands from the product of Cuban soil. This statement is made on the assumption that such concerns would avoid the errors into which several colonization companies, which otherwise had good prospects, have fallen. No such project should be started, except with well defined plans, plenty of capital to carry them through, and, above all, a management familiar with Cuban soils and conditions.
To begin with, the acquisition of one thousand acres of the best arable land, well situated for the transportation of produce, will require the investment of one hundred thousand dollars, which would, however, cover the cost of buildings, water supply, and other necessary permanent accessories. Each acre would then call for the further investment of one hundred dollars, which would include all expenses until the first crop should be secured. The expense of cultivation would average about fifty dollars an acre, and an average return of one hundred dollars could be looked for. This estimate of fifty dollars gross profit per acre will appear excessive, and doubtless most Cuban farmers would call it ridiculous. Nevertheless, there are directors of experimental stations in Cuba, who are prepared to demonstrate the feasibility of accomplishing it with ordinary staple crops, and several experts, familiar with local conditions, who endorse it. If it is possible to produce thirty, or even fifteen per cent. net profit from the cultivation of Cuban farm lands, then the fact is the most striking evidence of the shortcomings of the present methods of agriculture. Of course, a large proportion of the estimated results would accrue from the economies in production which a well-capitalized corporation could effect by the employment of labor-saving mechanical devices, and the economies which would naturally arise from shipping in great bulk.
In Hawaii, Mexico, and other tropical countries, the agricultural development has been
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effected mainly by large corporations, and in the majority of cases the enterprises have enjoyed financial success. All things considered, the prospect for such a project would be unusually good in Cuba. One such undertaking would be a revelation to the Cubans, and to the world at large. It would attract additional capital to the same field and otherwise work such benefit to the country that the Government and the railroad which would be immediately affected by it might reasonably be expected to lend substantial aid in its establishment and operation.
It is to be feared that capitalists who have considered such an enterprise, have been deterred from entering upon it by knowledge of the failures of some of the ill-judged colony projects. Several of these were doomed to failure from the outset. In some cases the promoters had bought poor land at low figures, which they sold to inexperienced settlers at high prices. Not infrequently these were invalids, or men looking for a life of ease, to whom it was represented that anyone might make a comfortable livelihood, if not a fortune, from Cuban land, with little effort and the investment of a trifling amount. The principal object of such companies is to dispose of their property as quickly as possible. They do little, or nothing, for the community which they create. The natural result of such a combination of unfavorable conditions is failure in its worst form. Cuba has suffered incalculable harm from the effects of dishonest and ignorant exploitation by American and Canadian land companies. But the fact remains that there are few more inviting fields for effort in agriculture, if intelligently undertaken with sufficient means.
The future development of Cuba must be along agricultural lines and it must depend mainly upon foreigners, of whom the greater proportion will unquestionably be Americans. The colony, or community system, is the best means of promoting this development, and there are a number of large companies engaged in it under admirable methods. These corporations are affording every possible aid to the settlements for which they are responsible, and are encouraging none to take up their lands without the means of profitably working them.