Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Although The Tobacco Of The Vuelta De
Abaxo Is The Most Famous, A Considerable Exportation Takes Place In
The Eastern Part Of The Island.
I rather doubt the total exportation
of 200,000 boxes of cigars (value 2,000,000 piastres) as stated by
several travellers during latter years.
If the harvests were thus
abundant, why should the island of Cuba receive tobacco from the
United States for the consumption of the lower class of people?
I shall say nothing of the cotton, the indigo, or the wheat of the
island of Cuba. These branches of colonial industry are of
comparatively little importance; and the proximity of the United
States and Guatimala renders competition almost impossible. The state
of Salvador, belonging to the Confederation of Central America, now
throws 12,000 tercios annually, or 1,800,000 pounds of indigo into
trade; an exportation which amounts to more than 2,000,000 piastres.
The cultivation of wheat succeeds (to the great astonishment of
travellers who have passed through Mexico), near the Quatro Villas, at
small heights above the level of the ocean, though in general it is
very limited. The flour is fine; but colonial productions are more
tempting, and the plains of the United States - that Crimea of the New
World - yield harvests too abundant for the commerce of native cereals
to be efficaciously protected by the prohibitive system of the
custom-house, in an island near the mouth of the Mississippi and the
Delaware. Analogous difficulties oppose the cultivation of flax, hemp,
and the vine.
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