Thence very quickly the habit grew, until in the middle of the seventeenth century tobacco was sought and fêted in every civilised country of the world. It may be appropriate in this connection to call the reader's attention to the fact that, although every known climate and soil of the earth have been tried in the cultivation of tobacco, Cuba, where it was discovered more than four hundred years ago, is still first in the quality produced, and Cuban tobacco need never fear a successful rival in excellence. The cultivation of tobacco in Cuba was not begun until 1580, when the Spaniards laid out small plantations in the neighbourhood of Havana. Three hundred years later there were over ten thousand tobacco plantations in the Island. These first plantations were located in or near the Vuelta Abajo (Lower Valley) to the south-west of Havana; and although even at that early period these plantations produced the best tobacco in the Island, the product of the Vuelta Abajo did not reach its world-wide fame until two hundred and fifty years later. Having once reached the summit of tobacco glory, however, the Vuelta Abajo product has never lost its proud position, and to-day ranks as the first tobacco in the world. This is due, of course, to soil and climatic conditions; for that peculiar skill or strange power, or whatever it may be, which the Cuban tobacco grower possesses is not more a characteristic of the Vuelta Abajo farmer than of other growers in the Island. Indeed, the Partidos leaf is larger in size, finer in texture, and richer in colour than its neighbour, the Vuelta Abajo, but it is lacking in the flavour which can only come from water, soil, and air. The Vuelta Abajo district occupies an area of about ninety miles in length by ten in width, and its province (Pinar del Rio) leads in the Cuban tobacco output, both as to quality and quantity. Tobacco is the second leading industry of Cuba, with sugar first, and its cultivation is considerably in advance of sugar as concerns not only profit to acreage, but conditions of plantations and labour. A sugar plantation is a wide waste of monotony in appearance; while a tobacco plantation, or _vega_, as it is known, with its kitchen garden, its _plantanos_ for feeding the hands, its flowering and fruit trees, its stone walls, its entrance gates and, pretty houses, is the most charming agricultural sight in Cuba except a coffee plantation. The average acreage of a _vega_ is, say, thirty-five acres, and from a dozen to forty men are employed in each _vega_, chiefly lower-class whites. More skill, too, is required in the cultivation of tobacco than sugar, and the class of labour is considerably superior to that employed in sugar planting. Only a small portion of the acreage of Cuba is occupied by tobacco plantations, notwithstanding tobacco is its second product in value. The bulk of it comes from the western end of the Island: the provinces of Pinar del Rio, Havana, and Santa Clara.