In January the plants are cut and the leaves hung to dry. When thoroughly dried, the leaves are petuned, or sprinkled with a solution of tobacco water until fermentation has taken place. The leaves are then roughly sorted with regard to size and quality, assembled in bunches, or hands, and packed in bales, each weighing about 125 pounds. It is estimated that over one hundred thousand persons in Cuba are engaged in the tobacco industry, and that eighty thousand of these are employed in the commercial cultivation of the leaf. One man is generally able to properly look after two acres, which will contain 15,000 plants. The cost of cultivation varies considerably in different parts of the Island and under different conditions. In the Province of Pinar del Rio the cost of preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting, care, rent, and general services, will approximate $8,000 for one _caballeria_, or 33-1/2 acres. The yield from such a tract will average 211 _tercios_, or bales, with a value of $50 each; 54 _arrobas_ (1,350 pounds) of seed, worth $216; and about $20 worth of stems. So that the output would fetch approximately $10,800, leaving $2,800 profit to the grower. Mr. Gustavo Bock, an owner and manufacturer of the greatest experience, puts the matter in a different form. His statement, as quoted in _Industrial Cuba_, follows: “To produce 100 bales of tobacco, of 50 kilos each, a farmer would rent one _caballeria_ of land, one half of which he would employ for tobacco cultivation and the remainder for vegetables. Rent of land per year $ 300 250,000 plants at $1.50 per thousand 375 6,250 pounds of Peruvian fertilizer 250 Hiring of oxen 102 Wages and maintenance of 12 men at $25 per month each 3,000 _Yaguas_, _Majaguas_, and expenses 300 Taxes, physician’s bills and medicines, and living expenses of the planter and his family 400 ------ Total $4,727 “So that a planter would have to sell each 50 kilos of tobacco at $47.27 to cover the cost of production. The foregoing figures show clearly that the production of tobacco in the Island of Cuba is more expensive than that in any other part of the world, especial attention being necessary to its raising from the day it is planted to the cutting of the leaf, besides the subsequent treatment necessary in order to obtain good leaf; which goes on day and night if a good quality is desired.”