Other Agricultural Products.—Corm or maize, is grown all over the island and is used extensive ly for the feeding of domestic animals. Rice is also cultivated, hut the harvest goes entirely to satisfy the domestic demand. Wheat, barley, and oats, chiefly for economic reasons, are little cultivated, and it is doubtful whether the output of wheat will ever meet the home demand. Sweet potatoes are raised almost everywhere and form a very important food article. The natural con ditions are exceedingly favorable for the cultiva tion of fruit. The banana is grown in enormous quantities, and besides being extensively ex ported to the United States, figures very promi nently in the diet of the poorer native classes. Oranges of an excellent quality also abound, and their cultivation will undoubtedly be extended owing to the recent destructive frosts in Florida. Coffee, once an important product, is now ( 1902 ) in a state of decline and the output is barely suffi cient for home consumption. Pineapples, cocoa nuts, limes, lemons, and numerous other southern fruits grow in abundance, but thus far very little has been done by the natives toward their systematic cultivation. the fruit interests being in the main in the hands of foreign (chiefly American) companies.
The forests of Cuba are supposed to occupy about 50 per cent. of the total area of the island. Besides the valuable mahogany and cedar woods which find their way to foreign markets, there are about thirty species of the palm, of which the royal palm is probably the most useful tree on the island, every part of it from the leaves and fibre to the roots being utilized by the na tives. Of the forest area the State owns 1.250, 000 acres.
The natural conditions for the raising of live stock are very favorable, and at one time this branch of agriculture was in a high state of devel opment. During the decades preceding the late war. however, the heavy import duties on live stock, whose effects were aggravated by periods of rebel lion, kept the supply far short of the natural demand, and most of the animals necessary for agricultural purposes and slaughtering had to he imported. In 1894 the live stock of the island numbered 584.725 horses, 2,485.766 cattle, 570, 194 hogs, and 78,494 sheep, with a total value of over $101,000,000. The effect of the late war on the live stock of the island may be seen from the census figures of 1899. which give the number of horses at 88,000; cattle, 376,650; hogs, 358,868; and sheep, 9982.