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.