Failure has fallen upon the efforts of a large proportion of the thousands of Americans who have taken up farming in Cuba. This has been due to a variety of causes. The chief of these has been insufficient money to make a fair start. Too often the settler comes out with little more than enough to pay for his land, build a modest dwelling, and buy a few pounds of seed. He is forced to depend upon his own labor solely, with inadequate mechanical equipment, and the land must support him from the first crop, or he is faced by starvation. In other cases, where the immigrant has money enough to buy good land and proper farm equipment, he approaches the task in complete ignorance of the peculiar conditions of agriculture in Cuba, and often with the additional handicap of preconceived ideas that are entirely wrong. He plunges into the cultivation of certain crops without any previous study or experience, and regardless of shipping and market conditions. Sooner or later he awakes to his mistake, but seldom before the loss of time and money has seriously crippled his resources. Many failures are to be attributed to the widespread tendency among American settlers in Cuba to take to fancy farming. They are fired with the desire to do something out of the ordinary and to produce something that no one else is growing. It is usually the pure amateur who is afflicted with this mania, which always costs him dearly. He generally ends as a man whose sole possession is a theory. There is no question about the assured success of the man who may undertake farming in Cuba with the proper equipment. He must have ample capital,--that is to say, enough for all calculable requirements and a little over. He must defer serious work until he has made a thorough study of the conditions. He should then devote his efforts to the production of the surest crops, those entailing the least hazard in cultivation, and for which there is a permanent market with a steady demand. If, furthermore, he uses intelligent methods in the cultivation of his land, he can not fail of success.