It is to be feared that capitalists who have considered such an enterprise, have been deterred from entering upon it by knowledge of the failures of some of the ill-judged colony projects. Several of these were doomed to failure from the outset. In some cases the promoters had bought poor land at low figures, which they sold to inexperienced settlers at high prices. Not infrequently these were invalids, or men looking for a life of ease, to whom it was represented that anyone might make a comfortable livelihood, if not a fortune, from Cuban land, with little effort and the investment of a trifling amount. The principal object of such companies is to dispose of their property as quickly as possible. They do little, or nothing, for the community which they create. The natural result of such a combination of unfavorable conditions is failure in its worst form. Cuba has suffered incalculable harm from the effects of dishonest and ignorant exploitation by American and Canadian land companies. But the fact remains that there are few more inviting fields for effort in agriculture, if intelligently undertaken with sufficient means. The future development of Cuba must be along agricultural lines and it must depend mainly upon foreigners, of whom the greater proportion will unquestionably be Americans. The colony, or community system, is the best means of promoting this development, and there are a number of large companies engaged in it under admirable methods. These corporations are affording every possible aid to the settlements for which they are responsible, and are encouraging none to take up their lands without the means of profitably working them. One of the greatest present requirements of Cuba is a revival of its old-time stock industry. The annual imports of cattle, horses, and mules [Illustration: “A SUGAR PLANTATION OF FIFTEEN HUNDRED ACRES WILL NEED ABOUT THREE HUNDRED OXEN.”] are large, and would be much larger if the peasants had the means of buying the animals that they sorely need. There is probably a shortage of not less than half a million head of various kinds of stock in the Island. The demand is constant and great. Horses and mules are everywhere employed as beasts of burden, and the ox is the universal draft animal. A sugar plantation of fifteen hundred acres will need about three hundred oxen, besides perhaps fifty horses and mules, and will slaughter twenty-five or more head of cattle monthly for meat.