Even with the greatest care, the worms will take a pretty heavy toll out of almost any field, and to save this loss, the system of covering tobacco fields with cheese cloth was introduced into Cuba from the State of Florida, some twenty years ago. Posts, or comparatively slender poles, are planted through the field at regular intervals, usually sixteen feet apart. From the tops of these, galvanized wire is strung from pole to pole, in squares, while over this is spread a specially manufactured cheese cloth or tobacco cloth, usually woven in strips of a width convenient to fit the distance between the poles. The seams are caught together with sail needles and cord, making a complete canopy that not only covers the field but has side walls dropping from the white roof to the ground below. Screen doors or gates are built in the side walls, so that mules with cultivators may pass through and work under these great white canopies, which protect the growing plants from the cut worm and save the poor old veguero and his family from the bane of their lives. The cost of poles, wire and covering cloth, under normal conditions, is about $300 per acre, and when to this are added several carloads of manure or other fertilizer, the expense of covering, fertilizing, cultivating and caring for an acre of tobacco will easily reach $500, whence the deduction that tobacco crops must bring a good price in Cuba is evident. As a result of these huge tent-like canopies, that frequently cover hundreds of acres, every leaf is perfect, and if of sufficient size and fineness, may be used as a wrapper. When one takes into consideration the fact that a “cuje,” or 220 pairs of leaves strung on a pole, is worth from $4 to $5, and that the same leaves when perforated by worms, can be used only as cigar fillers, worth from 75¢ to $1.35 per “cuje,” the advantage of cheese cloth covering to a tobacco field becomes evident. Owing to lack of capital, however, the small native farmer usually is compelled to do without cheese cloth, and to rely upon the laborious efforts of himself and his family, to keep the worm pest from absolutely ruining his crop.