The Atkins Properties comprise one property belonging to Mr. Edward F. Atkins, of Boston, who is reputed to be the first American to have acquired a sugar property in Cuba, and three others belonging to or controlled by the Punta Alegre Sugar Company, the most active personality connected with which is Mr. Robert W. Atkins. The Punta Alegre Sugar Company was incorporated, in 1915, as a holding and operating company, engaged in the business of owning and operating sugar plantations and factories in the Island of Cuba. It owns and controls 40,831 acres and leases 25,717 acres of land; and is reported to be doubling the capacity of its central at Punta Alegre. Credit for the suggestion and initiative that resulted in the combination of these properties and the organization of this Company is generally given to Mr. Ezra J. Barker (Ray Barker) of New York, and Major Maude, a retired British Army officer who for many years has resided in Cuba. The prestige and financial standing of the officers and directors of and of the capitalists interested in the Punta Alegre Sugar Company and the Atkins Properties is sufficient to guarantee the successful operation of these properties.
The Poté Rodriguez Properties are the personal property of Don José Lopez Rodriguez, who is a Spanish subject residing in Havana, and known to every body as “Poté.” Some say that this nickname is an abbreviation of the word “poder,” or “power.” Certain it is that Don Poté Rodriguez is, in fact, a human dynamo, the very embodiment of power and push. Beginning as a book-seller, stationer and printer, on Obispo Street, Havana, where he still conducts that business and makes his headquarters, he has, in recent years, acquired a controlling interest in the Banco Nacional de Cuba, a corporation having a capital of $8,000,000; he has also invested several millions of dollars in an elaborate suburban annex to the city of Havana, including a large Portland cement plant; he has contracted to dig the Roque Canal, projected to drain the Jovellanos Flats and part of the Cienaga or swamp lands near Cardenas; and he is the sole owner of the Central España, the pride of his heart, upon which he has worked day and night for years, hoping to make it the largest producing sugar “central” in Cuba. But despite his efforts three other “centrales” surpass it in productive capacity.
The West Indies Sugar Finance Corporation is a protege if not actually a subsidiary of the B. H. Howell-Cuban-American-National Sugar Refining Company group, which under the intelligent and experienced direction of Mr. H. Edson, of New York City, has come to be a factor of prime importance in the sugar business in Cuba. It is claimed that the tonnage of cane obtained from the lands of one of the properties owned by this Corporation in the season of 1918-19 averaged higher than that of any other sugar producing property in Cuba; and that the average yield of sugar was as good as the best. The splendidly economical milling plants at Tinguaro, Chaparra and Delicias were installed under Mr. Edson’s direction, and it is reasonable to assume that the mills of his own corporation are equally efficient. Few men interested in the sugar business in Cuba have had a broader, more varied or more useful experience; and there are none whose judgment as to the value of cane lands and sugar properties is more to be relied upon.
The Gomez-Mena Properties were united and built up by Don Antonio Gomez-Mena, a Spanish subject, who has resided for many years in Cuba, where he developed a large mercantile business in the city of Havana; out of the profits of which he began the building of the well known Manzaña de Gomez-Mena, or Gomez-Mena Block, which has recently been completed by his heirs; and also acquired and developed the two sugar properties with which his name is identified, and which are now owned by his son, Don Andres Gomez-Mena. These “centrales,” known as Amistad and Gomez-Mena, and located respectively near Guines and San Nicolas, in the southeastern part of the Province of Havana are of special interest since on them more clearly than elsewhere in Cuba are practically demonstrated the benefits to be derived from irrigation and the value of cienaga or swamp lands when drained and reclaimed. When Señor Gomez-Mena purchased the properties they were regarded as of little value, because a large part of the area consisted of swamp lands, carrying an excess of water, while the balance was composed of higher lands of a character so dry as to be practically valueless for purposes of agriculture. It was rightly reasoned that both of these difficulties could be overcome. So the wet lands were drained and the dry lands were irrigated; with the result that these two properties are now regarded as among the most profitably productive sugar estates in Cuba; relative areas, of course, being taken into consideration.
The Cuba Company Properties were developed by Sir William C. Van Home for the purpose primarily of providing traffic for the newly constructed Cuba Railroad; which fact accounts for their location along that line, remote from shipping ports, at a time when more desirable locations could have been acquired, looked at from the point of view of economical sugar production. Nevertheless both of these properties seem to have paid well upon the capital invested in them, while at the same time contributing handsomely to swell the revenues of the Cuba Railroad; all of which speaks well for the sagacity and enterprise of Sir William Van Home, and increases the credit to which he is justly entitled.
The Mendoza Cunagua Property differs from all other sugar producing properties in Cuba in that it was projected, developed and built up as a complete whole, from start to finish, by a group of Cuban capitalists dominated by members of the well known and highly respected Mendoza family; the most active personalities in the enterprise being Don Antonio and Don Miguel Mendoza. Considered in every feature and detail, the Central Cunagua Property is probably the most complete and most perfectly appointed and equipped cane growing and sugar producing establishment that was ever created as the result of one continuous and comprehensive effort; Don Antonio Mendoza having the credit for its accomplishment. At Cunagua more than any where else in connection with the growing of cane and the production of sugar does the human equation receive prime consideration, as compared with the beasts of the field, or the machinery of the factory; all of which are, however, looked upon as assets and are well cared for. So well and thoroughly, indeed, was all of this planned and accomplished, and so promisingly did everything point towards a future rich with reward, honestly earned and well deserved by the creators of this splendid property, that it is in a sense regrettable to have to add that the Central Cunagua Property has recently been sold to the American Sugar Refining Company of New York City; which company has also acquired additional lands in its vicinity, upon which a duplicate of the Central Cunagua will be installed.
There are many other meritorious cane growing and sugar producing enterprises in Cuba, that are deserving of consideration; but which cannot be satisfactorily described within the space here available for the purpose. It must suffice to add that of the total sugar produced in Cuba during the season of 1918 and 1919, amounting to 27,747,704 bags, 13,587,733 bags or 49.04 per cent were produced by sixty-five properties owned or controlled by American interests, and 14,159,971 bags or 50.96 per cent were produced by one hundred and thirty-one properties owned or controlled by Cuban and European interests. It may not be amiss also to call attention to the fact that the sugar crop of Cuba, for the season of 1918-19 amounted to nearly one-fourth of the total sugar production of the world. If allowance is made for the normal average increase in consumption of sugar, as indicated by experience during the fifteen years just before the European War, the world’s production of sugar for the year 1919 should have been 21,813,551 tons, while in fact it amounted to only 16,354,580 tons. This shows that the actual net shortage in the world’s production of sugar amounted to 5,458,971 tons instead of the 2,342,751 tons commonly mentioned, the latter figures representing only the difference in production between the years 1914 and 1919. This indicates that there are no grounds for apprehension on the part of anyone contemplating investing in desirable property in Cuba, as to the world’s production overtaking the world’s consumption of sugar for a number of years to come. The economic position of Cuba as the premier sugar-producing country of the world may therefore be confidently regarded as secure.
CHAPTER XVI
TOBACCO
THIS strangely hypnotic leaf of the night-shade family seems to have originated in the Western Hemisphere, and that variety familiar to commerce, known as the Nicotina Tabacum, was in popular use among the aborigines of the West Indies, Mexico and the greater part at least of the North American continent, probably for thousands of years before the written history of man began.
Christopher Columbus and his followers noted the fact that the Indians of Cuba wrapped the clippings from peculiar aromatic dark brown leaves in little squares of corn husks, which they rolled and smoked with apparent pleasure. It did not take long for the Spanish conquerors to fall into the habit of the kindly natives who received them and who almost immediately offered them cigars in token of welcome to the Island of Cuba.