are packed in bales of about 110 pounds each, and are then ready for the market.  Because of the varying conditions under which the leaf is produced, from year to year, it is somewhat difficult to determine with any accuracy the increase in the industry.  Broadly, the output appears to have been practically doubled in the last twenty years, a growth attributed to the new economic conditions, to the extension of transportation facilities that have made possible the opening of new areas to cultivation, and to the investment of capital, largely American capital.  The exports show, generally, a material increase in sales of leaf tobacco and some decline in sales of cigars.  The principal market for the leaf, for about 85 per cent of it, is in the United States where it is made, with more or less honesty, into “all-Havana” cigars.  This country, however, takes only about a third of Cuba’s cigar output.  The United Kingdom takes about as much of that product as we do, and Germany, in normal times, takes about half as much.  The remainder is widely scattered, and genuine imported Havana cigars are obtainable in all countries throughout the world.  The total value of Cuba’s yearly tobacco crop is from $40,000,000 to $50,000,000, including domestic consumption and foreign trade.

The story that all Cubans, men and women alike, are habitual and constant smokers, is not and never was true.  Whatever it may have been in the past, I am inclined to think that smoking by women is more common in this country than it is in Cuba, particularly among the middle and upper social classes.  I have seen many American and English women smoke in public, but never a Cuban woman.  Nor is smoking by men without its exceptions.  I doubt if the percentage of non-smokers in this country is any greater than it is in the island.  There are many Cubans who do smoke, just as there are many Americans, Englishmen, Germans, and Russians.  Those who watch on the street for a respectable Cuban woman with a cigar in her mouth, or even a cigarette, will be disappointed.  Cuba’s tobacco is known by the name of the region in which it is produced; the Vuelta Abajo of Pinar del Rio; the Partidos of Havana Province; the Manicaragua and the Remedios of Santa Clara; and the Mayari of Oriente.  Until quite recently, when American organized capital secured control of many of the leading factories in Cuba, it was possible to identify a cigar, in size and shape, by some commonly employed name, such as perfectos, conchas, panetelas, imperiales, londres, etc.  The old names still appear, but to them there has been added an almost interminable list in which the old distinction is almost lost.  Lost, too, or submerged, are many of the old well-known names of manufacturers, names that were a guarantee of quality.  There were also names for different qualities, almost invariably reliable, and for color that was supposed to mark the strength of the cigar.  An accomplished