The owner furnishes the land, the seed, the working animals and what is more important still, credit at the nearest grocery or general store, on which the family lives during the entire year, and for which the interest paid in one form or another constitutes a burden from which the “veguero” seldom escapes. The latter furnishes the labor, time, care and knowledge necessary to bring the crop to a successful termination. When the tobacco is sold, the “veguero” receives his part of the returns, pays his bills, and usually invests the remainder in lottery tickets and fighting chickens. The life of the tobacco plant, from transplanting to the time in which it is due and removed from the fields, is only about ninety days. The selected seed is sown in land on which brush or leaves have been previously burned, destroying injurious insect life, while furnishing the required potash to the soil. The seed beds are known as “semilleros” and are carefully tended until the plants are five or six inches in height, when they are removed and carried to the “vega,” previously prepared with an abundance of stable manure or other fertilizer, well rotted and plowed in. In three months’ time, with care and careful cultivation, a crop will be ready for cutting and curing. The semilleros are prepared usually during the latter part of September, or early October, when the fall showers are still plentiful. By the first of January, if the plants have had sufficient growth and the weather is cool, clear and dry, the leaves are cut in pairs, either united to the stalk or connected by needle and heavy thread, and afterwards strung over a bamboo or light pole known as a “cuje.” To each “cuje” are assigned two hundred and twenty pairs of leaves. These are carried to the tobacco barns, with sides built usually of rough board slabs, above which is a tall sharp roof, made from the leaves of the guana palm. Only one or two openings are placed in each tobacco barn to admit the required amount of air, while the tobacco, still supported on poles, goes through a process of curing, which the experienced “veguero” watches with care. At the proper time the crop is removed from the poles and done up in “mantules” or bundles, which are afterwards delivered to the “escogidos,” where tobacco experts select and grade the leaves in accordance with their size and condition. After this they are baled and incased in “yagua,” a name given to the broad, tough base of the royal palm leaves, and sent to Havana or other central mart for sale. Tobacco buyers from all over the world come to Havana every fall to purchase their supplies of raw material for manufacture into cigars and cigarettes.