The tobacco industry at the present time commercially ranks next to sugar. The total value of the crop in 1917 approximated $50,000,000, of which $30,000,000 was exported to foreign countries. Of the exportations of that year, the largest item consisted of the leaf itself, packed in bales numbering 291,618, valued at $19,169,455; cigars, 111,909,685 valued at $9,548,933; cigarettes, 12,047,530 packages, valued at $406,208; picadura or smoking tobacco, 261,461 kilos, valued at $251,874. There were 258,994,800 cigars during the same year consumed in Cuba, with an approximate value of $12,000,000; of cigarettes, 355,942,855 packages, valued at $7,830,742; and of picadura, 393,833 pounds valued at $196,719. During the four years inclusive from 1913 to 1917 the value of exported tobacco increased a little over $6,000,000, while domestic consumption increased about one-half or $3,000,000. In the various factories of cigars and cigarettes of Havana, some 18,000 men and 7,000 women are employed. In other sections of the Island, outside of the capital, some 16,000 men and 13,000 women are engaged in the manufacture of cigars and cigarettes, making a total of 34,000 men and 20,000 women employed in the tobacco industry, aside from those who are engaged in tobacco cultivation in the fields of the various provinces. CHAPTER XVII HENEQUEN Next to the “Manila hemp” of the Philippines, which is really a variety of the banana, the henequen of Yucatan is probably the most important cordage plant in the world. The name henequen is of Aztec origin, and the plant itself, a variety of the agave or century plant family, is indigenous to Yucatan, whence it has been introduced not only into other sections of Mexico but also into Cuba, Central America and the west coast of South America. No satisfactory substitute has been found for henequen in the manufacturing of binder twine, so essential to the harvesting of the big grain crops in the Western States of America. Revolutions in Mexico following the overthrow of Porfirio Diaz succeeded for a time at least in paralyzing if not destroying the sisal industry that had made Yucatan celebrated throughout the world and had caused Merida to be known as a city of millionaires; and shortly before the beginning of the great European War, men who had devoted their lives to henequen culture and who feared that Mexico could no longer be relied on for this product, began to look over the Cuban field for opportunity for the more extensive cultivation of the plant.