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.
Tobacco was grown at that time in nearly all parts of the Island. Rumor
soon circulated, however, that the best weed was grown only in the
extreme western end of Cuba, known today as the Vuelta Abajo, or down
turn, and the report proved true, since only in Pinar del Rio is grown
the superior quality of leaf that has made that section famous
throughout the world. Neither has careful study or analysis of soils
betrayed the secret of this superiority over tobacco grown in other
parts of the Island.
The choice tobaccos of the Vuelta Abajo are grown in a restricted
section of which the City of Pinar del Rio is the approximate center.
The whole area of the Vuelta will not exceed thirty miles from east to
west, nor is it more than ten miles from north to south. And even in
this favored district, the really choice tobacco is grown in little
“vegas,” or fields, comprising usually a small oasis from three to
fifteen acres in extent, in which a very high grade of tobacco may be
grown, while adjoining lands, similar in appearance, but lacking in the
one magic quality which produces the desired aroma and flavor, are
largely wanting. The prices obtained for the tobacco grown on these
favored “vegas” seem almost incredible. A bale of this tobacco, weighing
between 80 and 90 pounds, will readily sell at from $100 to $500.
When one considers that with the use of cheese cloth as a protection
from cut worms, from eight to twelve bales are taken from an acre,
valued at $200 each, which means a return of approximately $2,000 per
acre for each crop, the importance of the tobacco crop in Vuelta Abajo
may be appreciated.
The value of an acre of any land that will return $2,000 annually to the
grower, at 10% interest on invested capital, would be $20,000. It is
needless to state that this price for tobacco lands, even in Vuelta
Abajo, does not prevail. It is nevertheless true, that many first-class
vegas of tobacco are held at prices that place them practically beyond
the reach of purchase.
In spite of the undoubted profits of tobacco growing in Cuba, the
condition of the “veguero,” as far as financial prosperity is concerned,
is far from enviable. As a rule, while knowing how to grow tobacco, he
does not know, nor does he care to learn, how to grow anything else. All
of his energy and time are devoted to the seed bed, the transplanting,
the cultivation, cutting, and curing of the leaf. He seldom owns the
soil on which the crop is grown, and usually prefers to be a
“Partidario” or grower of tobacco on shares with the owner.
The owner furnishes the land, the seed, the working animals and what is
more important still, credit at the nearest grocery or general store, on
which the family lives during the entire year, and for which the
interest paid in one form or another constitutes a burden from which
the “veguero” seldom escapes. The latter furnishes the labor, time, care
and knowledge necessary to bring the crop to a successful termination.
When the tobacco is sold, the “veguero” receives his part of the
returns, pays his bills, and usually invests the remainder in lottery
tickets and fighting chickens.
The life of the tobacco plant, from transplanting to the time in which
it is due and removed from the fields, is only about ninety days. The
selected seed is sown in land on which brush or leaves have been
previously burned, destroying injurious insect life, while furnishing
the required potash to the soil. The seed beds are known as “semilleros”
and are carefully tended until the plants are five or six inches in
height, when they are removed and carried to the “vega,” previously
prepared with an abundance of stable manure or other fertilizer, well
rotted and plowed in. In three months’ time, with care and careful
cultivation, a crop will be ready for cutting and curing.
The semilleros are prepared usually during the latter part of September,
or early October, when the fall showers are still plentiful. By the
first of January, if the plants have had sufficient growth and the
weather is cool, clear and dry, the leaves are cut in pairs, either
united to the stalk or connected by needle and heavy thread, and
afterwards strung over a bamboo or light pole known as a “cuje.”
To each “cuje” are assigned two hundred and twenty pairs of leaves.
These are carried to the tobacco barns, with sides built usually of
rough board slabs, above which is a tall sharp roof, made from the
leaves of the guana palm. Only one or two openings are placed in each
tobacco barn to admit the required amount of air, while the tobacco,
still supported on poles, goes through a process of curing, which the
experienced “veguero” watches with care.
At the proper time the crop is removed from the poles and done up in
“mantules” or bundles, which are afterwards delivered to the
“escogidos,” where tobacco experts select and grade the leaves in
accordance with their size and condition. After this they are baled and
incased in “yagua,” a name given to the broad, tough base of the royal
palm leaves, and sent to Havana or other central mart for sale. Tobacco
buyers from all over the world come to Havana every fall to purchase
their supplies of raw material for manufacture into cigars and
cigarettes.
Excellent tobacco is grown also in the Valley of Vinales, and may be
successfully cultivated in nearly all of the valleys, pockets and basins
that lie in the mountains of Western and Northern Pinar del Rio. This
tobacco as a rule is graded in quality and price a little below that of
the choice Vuelta Abajo center.
Along the line of the Western Railroad, extending east from Consolacion
del Sur to Artemisa, tobacco is also grown on the rolling lands and
among the foothills that lie between the railroad and the southern edge
of the Organ Mountains. This section, some fifty miles in length, with
an average width of five or six miles, in which tobacco forms quite an
important product, is known as the Semi-Vuelta or Partido district. Its
leaf, however, brings in the open market only about half the sum
received for the Vuelta Abajo. Nevertheless, at all points in this
section where irrigation is possible, the culture of tobacco, especially
when grown under cheese cloth, is profitable.
Again, along the banks of several rivers south and east of the City of
Pinar del Rio, especially along the Rio Hondo, a very good quality of
tobacco is grown in the sandy lands rendered fertile by frequent
overflow of these streams in the rainy season as they pass through the
level lands of the southern plains.
The chief enemies of the tobacco plant are some five or six varieties of
worms that cut and eat the leaves. The larvae are hatched from the eggs
of different kinds of moths that hover over the tobacco fields at
night. Some are hatched from egg deposits on the plant itself, and at
once begin eating the leaf, while others enter the ground during the
day, coming out during the evening to feed, and no field unless
protected by cheese cloth, or carefully watched by the patient veguero,
can escape serious damage or complete destruction from these enemies of
tobacco. It is a common thing at sundown to see the father, mother and
all members of the family big enough to walk, down on hands and knees,
hunting and killing tobacco worms. On bright moonlight nights, the worm
hunt is carried on assiduously, and in the early hours of dawn the
veguero and his family, if the crop is to be a success, must be up like
the early bird and after the worm, otherwise there will be nothing to
sell at the end of the season.
Even with the greatest care, the worms will take a pretty heavy toll out
of almost any field, and to save this loss, the system of covering
tobacco fields with cheese cloth was introduced into Cuba from the State
of Florida, some twenty years ago. Posts, or comparatively slender
poles, are planted through the field at regular intervals, usually
sixteen feet apart. From the tops of these, galvanized wire is strung
from pole to pole, in squares, while over this is spread a specially
manufactured cheese cloth or tobacco cloth, usually woven in strips of a
width convenient to fit the distance between the poles. The seams are
caught together with sail needles and cord, making a complete canopy
that not only covers the field but has side walls dropping from the
white roof to the ground below. Screen doors or gates are built in the
side walls, so that mules with cultivators may pass through and work
under these great white canopies, which protect the growing plants from
the cut worm and save the poor old veguero and his family from the bane
of their lives. The cost of poles, wire and covering cloth, under normal
conditions, is about $300 per acre, and when to this are added several
carloads of manure or other fertilizer, the expense of covering,
fertilizing, cultivating and caring for an acre of tobacco will easily
reach $500, whence the deduction that tobacco crops must bring a good
price in Cuba is evident.
As a result of these huge tent-like canopies, that frequently cover
hundreds of acres, every leaf is perfect, and if of sufficient size and
fineness, may be used as a wrapper. When one takes into consideration
the fact that a “cuje,” or 220 pairs of leaves strung on a pole, is
worth from $4 to $5, and that the same leaves when perforated by worms,
can be used only as cigar fillers, worth from 75¢ to $1.35 per “cuje,”
the advantage of cheese cloth covering to a tobacco field becomes
evident. Owing to lack of capital, however, the small native farmer
usually is compelled to do without cheese cloth, and to rely upon the
laborious efforts of himself and his family, to keep the worm pest from
absolutely ruining his crop.
The tobacco industry at the present time commercially ranks next to
sugar. The total value of the crop in 1917 approximated $50,000,000, of
which $30,000,000 was exported to foreign countries. Of the exportations
of that year, the largest item consisted of the leaf itself, packed in
bales numbering 291,618, valued at $19,169,455; cigars, 111,909,685
valued at $9,548,933; cigarettes, 12,047,530 packages, valued at
$406,208; picadura or smoking tobacco, 261,461 kilos, valued at
$251,874. There were 258,994,800 cigars during the same year consumed in
Cuba, with an approximate value of $12,000,000; of cigarettes,
355,942,855 packages, valued at $7,830,742; and of picadura, 393,833
pounds valued at $196,719. During the four years inclusive from 1913 to
1917 the value of exported tobacco increased a little over $6,000,000,
while domestic consumption increased about one-half or $3,000,000.
In the various factories of cigars and cigarettes of Havana, some 18,000
men and 7,000 women are employed. In other sections of the Island,
outside of the capital, some 16,000 men and 13,000 women are engaged in
the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes, making a total of 34,000 men
and 20,000 women employed in the tobacco industry, aside from those who
are engaged in tobacco cultivation in the fields of the various
provinces.