Tobacco is grown from seeds, planted in specially prepared seed beds. Seeding is begun in the early autumn. When the young plant has attained a proper height, about eight or ten inches, it is removed to, and planted in, the field of its final growth. This preliminary process demands skill, knowledge, and careful attention equal, perhaps, to the requirements of the later stages. Experiments have been made with mechanical appliances, but most of the work is still done by hand, particularly in the area producing the better qualities of leaf. From the time of transplanting, it is watched with the greatest care. A constant battle is waged with weeds and insect life, and water must be brought if the season is too dry. If rains are excessive, as they sometimes are, the crop may be partly or wholly destroyed, as it was in the autumn of 1914. The plant matures in January, after four months of constant watchfulness and labor, in cultivation, pruning, and protection from worms and insects. When the leaves are properly ripened, the stalks are cut in sections, two leaves to a section. These are hung on poles and taken to the drying sheds where they are suspended for three or more weeks. The time of this process, and its results, depend upon moisture, temperature, and treatment. All this is again an operation demanding expert knowledge and constant care. When properly cured, the leaves are packed in bales of about 110 pounds each, and are then ready for the market. Because of the varying conditions under which the leaf is produced, from year to year, it is somewhat difficult to determine with any accuracy the increase in the industry. Broadly, the output appears to have been practically doubled in the last twenty years, a growth attributed to the new economic conditions, to the extension of transportation facilities that have made possible the opening of new areas to cultivation, and to the investment of capital, largely American capital. The exports show, generally, a material increase in sales of leaf tobacco and some decline in sales of cigars. The principal market for the leaf, for about 85 per cent of it, is in the United States where it is made, with more or less honesty, into "all-Havana" cigars. This country, however, takes only about a third of Cuba's cigar output. The United Kingdom takes about as much of that product as we do, and Germany, in normal times, takes about half as much. The remainder is widely scattered, and genuine imported Havana cigars are obtainable in all countries throughout the world. The total value of Cuba's yearly tobacco crop is from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000, including domestic consumption and foreign trade.