Trammeled by restrictions
and exactions, it was confined almost entirely to the poorer
classes of the population, who were enabled to raise a scanty and
uncertain crop through the advances of capital made them by the
"Factoria." Since the suppression of this monopoly, it has had to
contend with the more popular and profitable pursuit of sugar
planting, which has successfully competed with it for the
employment of the capital, skill and labor of the island.
SUGAR CANE AND ITS CULTIVATION.
Maturin Ballou, in his "Cuba Past and Present," published in 1885,
when the sugar industry was in its best days, writes an
interesting account of cane cultivation:
"Sugar cane is cultivated like Indian corn, which it also
resembles in appearance. It is first planted in rows, not in
hills, and must be hoed and weeded until it gets high enough to
shade its roots. Then it may be left to itself until it reaches
maturity. This refers to the first laying out of a plantation,
which will afterwards continue fruitful for years, by very simple
processes of renewal.
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