As may be readily seen, fruit-raising in Cuba is yet in its infancy, and inasmuch as there is no serious competitor in the American market, save Florida and Porto Rico, there is no reason why the future development should not be of the vastest proportions. Since the great frost in Florida, which killed out the orange trees and slaughtered fruit and vegetables generally, that garden spot has become more or less unreliable; and as Cuba has never known a killing frost, is not much farther from the markets than Florida, and has water communication from all points, it must be accepted that Cuba will control the future fruit supply of this country, and American capital will not be slow to avail itself of the opportunities offered.
Authorities differ as to the introduction of coffee, which is not indigenous to Cuban soil. One sets the date as 1742, and asserts that the plant was imported from Haiti; another says it came in 1709 from Martinique; but, whenever it came, coffee culture grew at once into a flourishing industry, and in time Cuban coffee ranked with the best in the world. Sugar-growing first lessened its field for profit by showing larger returns with much less labour and care, always an object of first consideration with Cubans; and in 1843 and 1846 disastrous hurricanes destroyed many plantations. Later, Brazil and other coffee-producing countries came into the market with a product grown under more favourable circumstances of governmental liberality and new and improved methods and machinery, and Cuban coffee practically disappeared from foreign markets. Still there are several hundred coffee plantations, supplying the local demand, and the business is profitable. The eastern end of the Island is the coffee-producing section, and 14,048,490 pounds were raised in the province of Santiago de Cuba in 1890-1896. Shipments to Spain in 1891-1895 aggregated $322,266. There is no prettier sight than a coffee plantation. The trees are set out in rows with wide alleys between, where waggons may pass to receive the crop, and with other trees, of various kinds, to furnish the shade needed for the proper development of the berry. The berry or seed grows peculiarly. Instead of hanging from the boughs of the tree, it gathers in clusters along the trunk. The seed in its pod resembles some strange kind of parasite.
The harvest extends from July to December; the plant is in the full glory of its blossom in February. Coffee-raising is a very pleasant occupation, for the plantations are in the uplands where the climate is good, and the work is much easier than that required either in sugar-or tobacco-raising. Naturally the condition of labour is considerably above the average, and a much better class of workmen is employed. All things considered, it is fair to conclude that coffee culture will receive more attention than sugar, tobacco, or fruit from the small farmers who migrate to Cuba from the United States; and in future the industry will be restored to the high place it once occupied, now that the burden of Spanish taxation is removed, and every encouragement will be given to all who undertake its cultivation.
CHAPTER XXV
TRANSPORTATION
THOUGH it has as poor a system of railway and waggon-road transportation as could be imagined, Cuba is by nature fitted for the very best system possible. With a length of over seven hundred miles a main stem of railway from end to end of the Island would have control of every shipping point on both coasts, by the extension of short branches to such of the harbours on either side (at the farthest not more than fifty miles away) as seem capable of development. With such a system of railways, the tributary waggon roads could be built at comparatively small cost, because at no point would long stretches of highway be necessary.
But no such transportation facilities have been developed in Cuba; and, although there are about one thousand miles of railway and some few waggon roads, they are totally inadequate, even if they were of the highest type. As a rule, they are wretchedly poor, and the Island has suffered more, industrially, from bad roads than from any other cause except Spanish domination. Under the new régime, the necessity of a railway from one end of the Island to the other is so urgent, and its value as an investment is so apparent, that capital stands waiting to complete it at the very earliest opportunity.
The waggon-road system of the Island, if there be any system, comprises a number of government roads, or “royal highways,” which are royal chiefly in name. The best known is the Camino Central, or Central Road, extending from Havana to Santiago de Cuba, a distance of about six hundred miles. Most of it is little better than a very bad specimen of “dirt road,” and none of it is calzada, or paved road (turnpike), except in the immediate vicinity of the better class of towns through which it passes. It has branches to the north and south, usually worse than the parent road. It is the national turnpike of Cuba, navigable only by mules in the wet season. It is said these sagacious creatures know the road so well that in particularly bad places they get out and walk along the stone walls by the roadside. Of the paved roads, or calzadas, other than mere local roads, leading out of the towns a short distance into the country, one from Coloma to Pinar del Rio is fifteen miles in length; one, the Western Calzada, from Havana to San Cristobal, sixty miles; Havana to Bejucal, the Southern Calzada, fifteen miles; Batabano to the beach, two miles and a half; Havana to Güines, the South-eastern Calzada, thirty miles; Havana to Santa Maria del Rosario, fifteen miles; Luyano to Guanabacoa, twelve miles; Nuñez to La Canoa, twenty-six miles; San Cristobal to Pinar del Rio, the South-western Calzada, thirty miles; Pinar del Rio to Colon, fifteen miles. This list includes all the roads in the Island, except those local outlets before mentioned, of which, though some are really good roads, the most are in bad repair.
Of the country roads, known as “dirt roads” in our country, Cuba has specimens which, but for the patient mule, would not for weeks during the rainy season feel the weight of a passenger; and even the mule is barred at times. There is a legend to the effect that once upon a time a mule kicked over a Spanish saint, and, as a penance, he was sent to serve as a beast of travel on Cuban roads. Inasmuch as the mule was the only possible carrier for these roads, and as the worse the mud the greater would be his penance, it came to be deemed sacrilege by the pious Spaniards to improve the dirt roads of Cuba. Hence their condition. These roads are really not roads; they are nothing better than unpaved strips of the public domain in its natural state; in the wet season they are impassable by reason of the mud, and in the dry season are impossible by reason of the dust. Travellers who have tried these roads say they are worse than the yellow fever, because they are more lingering.
