Industrial Cuba - being a study of present commercial and industrial conditions with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the island for American capital, enterprise and labour (1899) (14595676967)

Identifier: industrialcubabe00port (find matches)

Title: Industrial Cuba : being a study of present commercial and industrial conditions with suggestions as to the opportunities presented in the island for American capital, enterprise and labour

Year: 1899 (1890s)

Authors: Porter, Robert P. (Robert Percival), 1852-1917

Subjects:

Publisher: New York : Putnam

Contributing Library: Robarts - University of Toronto

Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

Text Appearing Before Image:

rior seeking mines of gold and silver, which theyhad been told existed. They found no gold or silver, butmany strange things, among them natives, with firebrandsin their hands, and puffing smoke from their mouths andnoses. After investigation into the nature of this peculiarcustom the sailors tried it for themselves; but its adoptionby the Spaniards was not immediate. The herb bore severalnames, but tabago, or tobago, or tabaco, seemed to be theone of most general adoption. It was the name of a peculiar-shaped implement, or pipe, which the natives used in smok-ing, and from this the name tobacco easily grew—thoughvarious European writers attempted to fix more romantic orpoetic names upon the new narcotic. Although tobacco was first known to the Spaniards in1492, it was not until 1560 that it was known at all in Spain,and not until 1586 that it was used in Europe, when RalphLane, sent out to Virginia as Governor by Sir WalterRaleigh, returned and smoked the first pipe in England. 302

Text Appearing After Image:

Tobacco 3°3 Thence very quickly the habit grew, until in the middle ofthe seventeenth century tobacco was sought and feted inevery civilised country of the world. It may be appropriate in this connection to call thereaders attention to the fact that, although every knownclimate and soil of the earth have been tried in the cultiva-tion of tobacco, Cuba, where it was discovered more thanfour hundred years ago, is still first in the quality produced,and Cuban tobacco need never fear a successful rival inexcellence. The cultivation of tobacco in Cuba was not begun until1580, when the Spaniards laid out small plantations in theneighbourhood of Havana. Three hundred years laterthere were over ten thousand tobacco plantations in theIsland. These first plantations were located in or near theVuelta Abajo (Lower Valley) to the south-west of Havana;and although even at that early period these plantationsproduced the best tobacco in the Island, the product of theVuelta Abajo did not reach its wo

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1899

University of Toronto

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