+----------+----------+----------+---------- Total cane-sugar production |3,082,260 |2,905,070 |2,887,045 |2,948,077 Total beet-sugar production |4,790,000 |4,825,529 |4,916,586 |4,285,429 (Licht.) | | | | +----------+----------+----------+---------- Grand total cane- and beet-sugar | | | | production |7,872,260 |7,730,599 |7,803,631 |7,233,506 Estimated increase in world's | | | | production | 141,661 | | | -----------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+---------- The above table shows the relative importance of the sugar-producing countries of the world. The time will come when Germany and the other continental countries will become tired of paying a bounty on the production of beet sugar. Then Cuba will take her rightful place as the greatest sugar-producing country of the world. If Cuba then belongs to the United States we shall control the sugar market of the world just as we now control the world's market in so many other staple products. CHAPTER XXI TOBACCO The companions of Christopher Columbus on the first voyage of discovery in 1492 found what has since been known as tobacco. Two weeks after sighting the first known land in the New West, that is to say, on the 27th of October, the ships of Columbus anchored off the shores of a great land, supposed to be the Kingdom of the Khan, to whose ruler Columbus bore letters of introduction from the King and Queen of Spain. Here--in the Island which is now called Cuba--exploring parties went ashore and proceeded into the interior seeking mines of gold and silver, which they had been told existed. They found no gold or silver, but many strange things, among them natives, with firebrands in their hands, and puffing smoke from their mouths and noses. After investigation into the nature of this peculiar custom the sailors tried it for themselves; but its adoption by the Spaniards was not immediate. The herb bore several names, but tabago, or tobago, or tabaco, seemed to be the one of most general adoption. It was the name of a peculiar-shaped implement, or pipe, which the natives used in smoking, and from this the name tobacco easily grew--though various European writers attempted to fix more romantic or poetic names upon the new narcotic. Although tobacco was first known to the Spaniards in 1492, it was not until 1560 that it was known at all in Spain, and not until 1586 that it was used in Europe, when Ralph Lane, sent out to Virginia as Governor by Sir Walter Raleigh, returned and smoked the first pipe in England. [Illustration: PLANTING TOBACCO.]