Of the other palms, the guano and yarey are valuable for their fibre, from which very fine hats and baskets are made for export; the guano de cana produces the vanilla-bean parasite and makes the best roofing material; the cocoanut palm is another variety, probably better known abroad by its product than any other; the guano de costa is noted for its elastic and waterproof wood.
Mahogany is the most valuable wood for export, although Cuban cedar is probably better known, because so much more of it is shipped to the United States; for example, in 1894, a good year, 12,051 mahogany logs were received here, and 106,545 cedar logs. Cuban mahogany is the most valuable known in the market. The common variety is worth from $110 to $150 per 1000 feet, and the bird’s-eye, or figured mahogany, commands almost any price. Ordinary prices for it run from $400 to $600 per 1000 feet, with more than double that for fancy varieties. Mahogany cutting in Cuba is done in the most primitive fashion and under numerous difficulties, and thus far it has been carried on in only the easily accessible places, leaving millions of feet yet standing in the dense forests of the interior. To begin with, the mahogany tree does not grow in groups, but takes its stand alone, a very monarch of the forest. Here it is found by the hunter, who sights its peculiar foliage from his lookout in some tall tree. Noting all the landmarks, he climbs down and cuts a path through the jungle to his prize, “blazing the way” for his companions. The trees are often large, sometimes thirty feet in circumference, and when they are very wide at the roots, the cutters build rude platforms of poles or saplings, called “barbecues,” around them, and from these platforms the tree is cut from ten to fifteen feet up the trunk. Thus are wasted several hundred feet of the finest part of the wood about the gnarled and curly roots. It is fair to suppose that there are fortunes to-day in the mahogany “stumpage” of Cuba, and it is in the most accessible portion of the Island. A day’s work for a man is to cut down two trees of from eight to ten feet in circumference; two men will cut three larger trees, and when a giant of a quarter of a hundred feet around is found, four men take the entire day, which is very short in the dense jungle, to lay it low. Great care is taken in felling the tree not to have it split or break and destroy its value. When the tree is down, all of it that is available for market is squared. It is hauled either to the nearest stream or to the coast or to a railroad station, as may be. Three hundred trees, averaging 2000 feet each, are a fair season’s work for an ordinary camp. Notwithstanding the poor methods of getting out mahogany timber, the shipments to the United States alone since 1885 have been 235,000 logs, aggregating 35,700,000 feet, valued at upwards of $5,000,000. The following statement of the shipments since 1894 will show the disastrous effects of the war.
| 1894 | 12,051 | logs |
| 1895 | 20,388 | “ |
| 1896 | 3,607 | “ |
| 1897 | 757 | “ |
| 1898 (to December) | 738 | “ |
Although the mahogany tree in the wilds, when it reaches its best condition, reaches enormous growth, much of that coming to market is comparatively small. Some logs are not over two feet in circumference, but fine logs are five times that. It may be explained that the mahogany which gives prestige to the Cuban product and which commands the highest price, comes from the Santiago district. In other parts of the Island the timber is smaller, but it is noted for its hardness.
The United States is most familiar with Cuban cedar in the form of cigar boxes. The shipments of cedar since 1885 have exceeded 700,000 logs containing over 70,000,000 feet, valued at $4,900,000, allowing $70 per 1000 as the average price in the market. Proportionately, cedar has suffered equally with mahogany by the war, as will be seen by the following table of shipments:
| 1894 | 106,545 | logs |
| 1895 | 61,888 | “ |
| 1896 | 28,130 | “ |
| 1897 | 4,055 | “ |
| 1898 (to November) | 5,204 | “ |
Of the supposed forty varieties of hard woods in the Cuban forests, lignum-vitæ is one of the hardest, and it grows fairly plentifully. Not a great deal of it has been shipped, and it is worth from thirteen to thirty dollars per ton according to quality. Cuban ebony is a fine wood growing generally about the Island, and is noted for its blackness. The majagua is a flourishing tree, forty feet in height at its best, and its bark produces a fibre which is made into rope equal to much of the hemp rope now in use. Its wood is also hard and durable. The baria is a fragrant flowering tree of hard wood, and the granadillo, though only a small tree of ten to twelve feet in height, produces a wood of great hardness and fine colour, from which handsome canes are made. The acana, roble blanco (white), roble amarillo (yellow), jique, and caiguaran are hard and durable woods, the last being especially useful for fence posts and other underground work, as it lasts like iron. The cuia is durable in water, and is useful for dock timber and such purposes. The caimitillo, yaya, moboa, and cuen are all useful woods in the making of house frames, furniture, barrel hoops, handles, and carriage shafts. The jaguey is a peculiar tree, beginning as a parasite on some other, from which it sends shoots to the ground, where, taking root, they grow up and choke out the parent tree, taking its place as a tree composed of innumerable stems or vines. It bears a fruit of which bats are fond, and they are thick in these trees in May. Its wood is used for walking-sticks and other small articles.
The ceiba, cottonwood or silk-cotton tree, is a tree of beauty and size, and of very general growth. It bears a pod filled with beautiful white silk-cotton, used for stuffing pillows, but too short of fibre for spinning. One of the notable trees of the world that travellers tell us of is the great ceiba tree in the Plaza at Nassau, Jamaica. The rubber tree has been introduced, in addition to some native gum-producing trees, undeveloped; and though enough was done towards its cultivation to prove that it could be grown successfully, the usual fate of new industries in competition with the Spanish style of taxation proved too much for it, and the business was ruined. The sand box receives its name from the peculiar rattling of its pods as of dropping sand. The trumpet tree is so called because of its hollow trunk which produces a trumpet-like sound. The banyan tree is noticeable along the coasts, where it generally prevails. One specimen, near Marianao just outside of Havana, has hung its branches down and taken root until it covers four or five acres, and is a great curiosity to the traveller.
Rosewood is plentiful in some parts of the Island, also logwood and other dyewoods, but little or nothing has been done to develop business in this direction, and they are holding their riches for the new discoverers from the north who shall explore the Island in good time.