The History of Cuba, vol. 5

by Willis Fletcher Johnson

The method of growing corn in Cuba has little to recommend it. Improvements will come, however, as a result of the excellent instructive work being carried on by the Government Experimental Station. As a rule, corn in Cuba is planted too close, and with absolutely no attention paid to the selection of seed; hence we seldom find more than one ear to a stalk.

A rather novel experiment, carried on by Mr. F. R. Hall, of Camaguey, has proved quite satisfactory in increasing the length of the ear. His corn is grown in hills four feet apart and cultivated in both directions. Two grains are planted in the hill, one a grain of selected Cuban corn, the other a grain of first-class American corn. The latter will make the taller stalk of the two, and from the former, or native stock, the tassel is nipped off, so that only pollen from the American corn is permitted to fall upon the silk and thus fertilize the native ear.

The result of this experiment has been a very much larger ear, the tip of which has retained the tight twist of the husk, peculiar to native corn. This closes in and protects the grain from attack of worms or borers. By selecting from this cross, and again crossing or fertilizing with Northern corn, a greatly improved variety of maize has been produced. This experiment is sufficient to demonstrate that a great deal may be done towards improving both the size and quality of Cuban corn.

Between the rows, calabaza, a variety of native pumpkin, greatly resembling that of the United States, is grown as a rule, thus following one of the precepts of New England. In this connection pumpkins from Massachusetts seed give excellent results, planted with corn. The demand for corn in the market, owing to the large amount consumed in the Island, insures always a good price to the grower.

Nearly all varieties of millet and kaffir corn thrive well in Cuba and furnish a very nutritious food for both stock and poultry. This millet, or “millo,” of which two varieties, the tall white and the short black, are in common use, is apparently free from enemies, and since it seems to thrive in seasons either wet or dry, and in lands either moist or subject to drought, the crop is considered very reliable and hence profitable especially where poultry raising is contemplated.

Wheat was grown at one time for home consumption, in the Province of Santa Clara. Here, on the high table lands, with a comparatively low temperature during the cool, dry winter months, it came to maturity. In one locality west of the city of Sancti Spiritus in Santa Clara, there is quite an extensive table land, with an altitude of some 2,000 feet, where a very good variety of wheat was grown along about the middle of the 19th century. It is said to have furnished an abundance of good grain that was highly prized in that section. Just why its cultivation was abandoned is not known, aside from the fact that most of the agriculturists found growing sugar cane vastly more profitable. With money from the sugar crop flour could be purchased and the demands of the baker satisfied.

Experiments are contemplated in the near future in the growing of wheat in this same locality. But regardless of the results, it is more than probable that custom or inclination will impel the people of Cuba under normal conditions to purchase their wheat from the United States.

Nevertheless, extensive experiments in the propagation of wheat, the seed of which has been brought from many countries, are now in process of development in the grounds of the Government Agricultural Station.

These will probably be supplemented a little later by plantings from selected seeds of the most promising varieties on the fertile soils of high plateaus in southeastern Santa Clara. Experimental work at the Central or Havana Station facilitates also the study of any disease that may attack different varieties of wheat before they have been accepted as permanently successful in Cuba.

Next to wheat bread, rice is in greater demand than any other food staple in Cuba. Large quantities are imported every year from India, and were it not for the low price of the product, greater attention would probably have been paid to its local production. Upland or dry rice has been grown to a certain extent in Cuba for many years. Nearly every farmer with suitable soil, who can command irrigation in any form, has a small patch of rice for his own consumption, and that grown from the Valencia seed is much preferred to the imported rice.