Sugar plantations are usually divided into Tablones covering ninety meters square, each lot separated by a road. Such lots, when well manured, irrigated and sown with sugar cane, produce sixty to eighty loads of "papelon" (brown sugar), or 160 loads of alcohol: that is, 5,120 cones of brown sugar weighing 8,129 kilograms or 9,600 liters of alcohol. Every plantation of any importance has a special building with the necessary machinery and equipment for manufacturing the different sugar products. These are: sugar, brown sugar, alcohol and rum.
Brown sugar is offered for sale molded in different forms such as cones and squares. The best quality of sugar produced in Venezuela is manufactured near Guatire, a town three hours distance from Caracas by motor truck or automobile. Rum is manufactured from sugar cane and alcohol. The previously mentioned Sugar Central Factories command an aggregate capital of $7,700,000, have a total of 12,800 hectares of sugar cane under cultivation and can produce 2,600 metric tons of sugar per day. This product at present commands a high price abroad; therefore, with proper management these plants now offer a Venezuelan product for exportation in large quantities and of a very fine quality, and for which without much difficulty they should be able to establish a wide market.
As far back as 1913 there existed 600 individuals and companies devoted to the cultivation of sugar cane, with an aggregate total capital of more than $10,600,000 invested in this industry.
WHEAT
This product was introduced into Venezuela by the Spaniards at the beginning of the conquest and was cultivated in Aragua, Barquisimeto, Trujillo, Mérida and the Táchira. The high table lands and valleys in the mountainous regions of Western Venezuela are available for cultivation of wheat. Fine crops of this grain are now raised, which, after being made into bread, is the chief breadstuff of all classes of the country.
In the Republic of Colombia wheat is cultivated on a large scale with good results both in cold, temperate and hot zones. Venezuela has similar zones, therefore by sowing the proper kind of grain in each zone as practiced in Colombia and by adopting the same or similar systems of cultivation as are there used, wheat could easily be raised in Venezuela not only for home consumption, but for export.
COTTON
Cotton, although a natural product of Venezuela, was not cultivated until 1782. Its output became important during the Civil War of the United States, but after that event and the subsequent great decline in prices of this staple product, the industry was gradually abandoned. The cotton tree attains the height of a shrub and under usual cultivation produces in Venezuela more than in the United States. At the beginning of 1800 the average exportation of cotton was 450,000 kilograms a year. In 1850 the export of cotton was of 300,000 kilograms and in 1888 of 57,000 kilograms. In 1913, 267,300 kilograms of cotton with a commercial value of $72,120 were exported.
Cotton grows in nearly the whole territory of Venezuela, but the best results have been obtained in the States of Aragua and Carabobo, which produce 54% of the total Venezuelan crop.