"To produce 100 bales of tobacco, of 50 kilos each, a farmer would rent one _caballeria_ of land (equalling 33-16/100 acres), one half of which he would employ for tobacco cultivation and the remainder for vegetables. Rent of land per year $ 300.00 250,000 plants @ $1.50 per thousand 375.00 6250 lbs. of Peruvian fertiliser 250.00 Hiring of oxen 102.00 Wages and maintenance of 12 men @ $25 per month each 3000.00 _Yaguas_, _Majaguas_, and expenses 300.00 Taxes, physicians bills and medicines, and living expenses of the planter 400.00 --------- Total $4,727.00 [Illustration: TOBACCO DRYING HOUSE.] "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, special attention being necessary to its raising from the day it is planted to the cutting of the leaf, besides the subsequent treatment necessary to obtain good results; which work goes on night and day, if a good quality is desired. The following measures are therefore necessary for the protection of the industry: "To insure a planter the sale of his crop at a price in proportion to the cost of production, it is absolutely indispensable that the present regulations prohibiting the importation and reimportation in this Island of all foreign manufactured or unmanufactured tobacco should continue in force; excepting only snuff and chewing tobacco, that have always been imported here and in no way hurt our trade or agriculture. Of the many laws and decrees which the Madrid Government has issued to favour this colony, none has been wiser than this prohibition of the importation of foreign leaf tobacco, thereby avoiding the importation of a leaf of inferior quality by unscrupulous persons, who after manufacturing the cigar in the way usual in this country, made perhaps with a small proportion of Cuban leaf, would export it as genuine Havana; a business which would prove most profitable to the adulterator, but which in time would totally ruin the reputation of our products, both agricultural and industrial, bringing about a decrease in prices which would eventually cause a cessation of the cultivation of tobacco. "Production of tobacco in the Island, local consumption, exports, particularly those to the United States. The production of tobacco in normal times is estimated at: