To give the reader a somewhat more definite idea of a sugar farm, a statement by Mr. P. M. Beal, of Beal & Co., lessees of the _Colonia Guabairo_, owned by Messrs. E. Atkins & Co., of Boston, possibly the largest American proprietors in Cuba, is herewith appended. Mr. Beal says: "In 1889, when preparations for cane farming were commenced, the _Guabairo_ was mostly impenetrable forest, and not a building of any kind existed; the working people slept under a cart until temporary palm-leaf huts could be constructed to shelter them. At this time the _Guabairo_ proper contained 1333 acres; later some 1100 acres were hired or bought, and the _colonia_ increased in area to about 2433 acres, of which in 1895, at the breaking out of the insurrection, 1100 acres were planted with cane and the rest was pasture, woods, and waste lands. In 1895, at the breaking out of the insurrection, the 1100 acres under cane cultivation produced about 2,500,000 _arrobas_ (an _arroba_ is twenty-five pounds), and aside from this, a sufficient quantity of corn and vegetables were grown for all the requirements of the _colonia_, so we never had to purchase. From the 1st of December to the 1st of June, an average of about 350 people were employed; of these ten per cent. were Canary Islanders or Spaniards, ten per cent. negro women and boys (white women do no field work); twenty per cent. native whites, and about sixty per cent. negroes and mulattoes. From the 1st of June to the 1st of December, an average of about 150 were employed. Women do no field work during this period. "For agricultural purposes this _colonia_ keeps nearly 300 oxen and about 20 horses and mules; also a few cows for milk, and a number of animals for beef, which in normal times varies from 30 to something over 100. In normal times this _colonia_ slaughters on an average, about 22 animals per month, with an average dressed weight of about 200 kilos (450 pounds) per head. The cost for preparing, breaking up, cross-ploughing, marking, furrowing, seed cane, planting, cultivating, wear and tear to implements, and weeding one _caballeria_ (33-1/3 acres) of cane to maturity, and do it well, is from $1400 to $1600, according to conditions of soil, wages, etc., and under normal conditions will here require from three to four years before the farmer can see any profits, and then only by intelligent management and good soil. Soil which requires planting every three to five years will ruin any man. The average yield of cane per _caballeria_ in Guabairo for 1895 was about 71,500 _arrobas_, and the cost per 100 _arrobas_ for weeding, cutting, carting, and delivering to the central amounted to about $1.84."