The History of Cuba, vol. 5

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

According to Mr. H. A. Himely, who is a recognized authority on the subject, 196 “centrales” handled the crop of 1919, amounting to 27,769,662 bags, or 3,967,064 tons of sugar. These “centrales” varied in output, from a minimum capacity of only 145 to a maximum of 701,768 bags, showing an average of about 142,000. Hence it is clear that the word “central” conveys no definite idea of capacity, and constitutes no exact unit of thought or calculation. Let us, however, assume that the word applies to a complete modern sugar factory of 250,000 bags yearly capacity, each bag containing 325 pounds of sugar; an output of 81,250,000 pounds. Factories of such capacity may be installed as single units or in multiple units. To obtain maximum results it is necessary that they shall be provided with sufficient areas of suitable land in one contiguous and reasonably compact body, within easy access of an economical deep water port, so that the costs of hauling and delivering the cane to the mill, and of transporting the sugar and molasses to the port, or shipside, may be reduced to the minimum. Now, of the new and virgin cane lands still remaining and now available in Cuba, there are few if any now obtainable which answer to these demands; and it is questionable if there are yet remaining and now available in the island new and virgin lands in tracts of sufficient size and aggregate area to warrant the installation of more than twenty “centrales,” having a combined yearly capacity of 5,000,000 bags. Indeed it is believed that it would be difficult if not impossible to find desirable and economically satisfactory locations for even so large a number.

Wherever possible, virgin forests are cleared and planted for cane fields, as the accumulated humus of centuries produces a growth of cane that with care will endure for from five to twenty-five years without replanting. In Oriente cane fields are still producing good crops which were planted fifty and even sixty years ago. This method of cane culture is, however, most uneconomical, since the soil in time will certainly become exhausted. No plant responds more quickly to judicious and generous use of fertilizers than does sugar cane; and, according to the best authorities, no matter how rich the soil may be, it pays to fertilize.

In opening up a sugar plantation, the trees are first felled and the trunks of valuable timber drawn off the land, while the limbs, brush and other waste materials are piled and burned. Owing to the previous shade of the trees, the ground is free from weeds, and but little preparation of the soil is required.

For the first planting, men with heavy sharp pointed “jique” sticks, about five feet in length, travel on parallel lines across the fields, jabbing these stakes into the ground at intervals of four or five feet. Behind them follow others, bearing sacks of cane cut into short pieces, containing one or two joints each, a piece of which is thrust into each hole, and the earth pressed over it with the bare foot. From the eyes of these sections of cane in the rich, moist earth there quickly rise shoots or sprouts of cane, and under the influence of the heavy tropical rains that fall during the summer months the growth is so rapid that the young cane shades the ground before weeds have time to grow. According to the usual custom of the country, the stumps of trees are left to rot and enrich the soil. Thus in the course of a few years a plantation is started at comparatively small cost, from which cane may be cut without replanting for many years to come.

Where sugar plantations are developed upon “savana” lands, the rows may be laid out with greater regularity and cultivated with modern machinery and implements until the cane has secured sufficient growth. At the expiration of eighteen months from the first planting, the cane should be ready for the mill. Cutters, with heavy machetes, go into the fields, seize the stalks of cane with the left hand, and with one deft blow of the machete cut them close to the ground. With three or four more strokes the canes are stripped of their leaves, topped, cut in halves and thrown into piles, ready to be loaded upon carts and carried to the mills or railroad stations.

During recent years hand labor in the fields has been difficult to secure in Cuba, and since the beginning of the European War the wages of cane cutters have risen from the usual average of $1.25 to $2.50 and even as high as $3.00 a day. Cuba has never had a sufficient amount of resident labor to handle her enormous crops of sugar. Thousands of men are brought to the Island annually, from Spain, the Azores, the Canary Islands, Venezuela, Panama and the West India Islands. Most of these laborers return to their homes at the end of the season, as they can live there in comfort upon the money earned until the next cane-cutting season. A machine for cutting cane, to do the work of forty men, has been invented and in 1918 received practical trial, which is said to have been fairly satisfactory. It is possible that this and other labor saving machinery will soon be perfected so that the large number of field hands now required may thus be replaced, to some extent, and the cost of cane culture and cutting correspondingly reduced.

Heavy two wheeled carts, drawn by from four to eight oxen, are still generally used to convey the cane from the fields to the mills or railroad stations. Plowing, also, is done largely with oxen, although these are being replaced on the more modern and up to date estates by traction engines hauling gang plows, and by motor driven trucks for the transportation of the cane. One of the latter, which was first used in 1918, is provided with several light steel demountable bodies, that are dropped at convenient places through the cane fields, where they are loaded and then drawn up again upon the frame of the truck by the power of the motor. The load of cane is then carried to the mill or loading station, and the empty body brought back to the field for reloading. Meanwhile other bodies have been loaded with cane, and the operation is repeated. Other experiments are being made with trucks of the ordinary type, mounted upon low wheels carrying so called caterpillar belts, so that they may be used in wet weather and on soft ground. These contrivances have not, however, eliminated the ox cart, which still hauls from the fields over ninety per cent of the cane produced in Cuba.

Labor plays an important part in the cost of producing sugar in Cuba and largely determines the profits of the industry. In 1914 the cost of producing a pound of sugar, in most of the well located and otherwise favorably conditioned mills in Cuba, was estimated at about two cents; and in some of the exceptionally favored mills even this figure left a margin of profit. But with the rapid rise in wages following the outbreak of the European War, and the consequent increase of expense of cultivating, cutting and handling cane, the cost of making sugar has become increasingly difficult to determine, as the wage rate may vary, both from day to day, and also in the different sections of the island, where labor may be scarce or plentiful.

The urgent demand for sugar brought about by the European War caused many fields to be planted with cane the soils of which were not suited for the purpose. Mills were also erected at several places in districts not favored by nature for sugar production. Later, when the selling price of sugar was fixed by the Sugar Commission appointed for that purpose, these less fortunately situated mills, compelled as they were to pay practically double the usual amounts for labor, found little if any profit remaining at the end of the year’s operations. Those mills favored by fertile lands and good locations yielded and continue to yield excellent returns upon the capital invested, in spite of the increased cost of labor.

In Cuba two altogether different methods are employed for planting, cultivating, cutting and delivering cane to the mills or loading stations, known, respectively, as the “Administration” and the “Colono” systems. Under the Administration system the work is directed by the management of the enterprise, and all labor and other expenses involved are paid by the owners of the property. Less than ten per cent of the cane annually produced is grown and delivered by this system. More than ninety per cent is, therefore, grown and delivered by the Colono system, which constitutes the distinctive feature of Cuban agriculture so far as it relates to the production of sugar. The system differs from the usual tenant-farming system in that there is no agreed sharing of the crop or fixed cash rental paid by the Colono to the landlord, in cases where the Colono is not himself the proprietor of the land in question. The system applies alike to lands owned by the enterprise, privately owned, or leased by the enterprise or the Colono; the terms and conditions varying slightly in each case. By a process of bargaining, based upon local conditions, the Colono gets from 4½% to 8%, with a probable average of 6¼%, of the weight of cane grown and delivered, in sugar, or its value in cash. That is to say, for every 100 pounds of cane grown and delivered by him he would get an average of 6¼ pounds of sugar, or its market value, in cash. Deducting the 6¼ pounds, paid as an average to the Colono, from the 11¼ pounds, given as the average yield of sugar, leaves only 5 pounds to the enterprise, out of which all expenses must be paid before profits or dividends can be shown. Moreover, under this system, any reduction in the yield of sugar would fall entirely upon the enterprise until it reached the 6¼% payable, on an average, to the Colono. As an illustration, take the crop of 1918 and 1919, amounting to 4,000,000 tons of sugar; about 2,222,225 tons went to the Colono, to cover the “cost of cane,” while only 1,777,775 tons went to the enterprise to cover all other expenses and provide for dividends upon the capital invested: and, should the yield of sugar have fallen one per cent, equivalent to 355,555 tons, the Colono would have received the same, while the enterprise would have received only 1,422,220 tons—and so on, until the enterprise would get nothing at all, although the earnings of the Colono would remain unchanged.