wain loads of the compost, or dunghill beforementioned, are carried out and used in nearly the same manner as the ashes.

BUT the chief dependence of the Jamaica planter in manuring his lands, is on the moveable pens, or occasional inclosures, before described; not so much for the quantity of dung collected by means of those inclosures, as for the advantage of the urine from the cattle (the best of all manures), and the labour which is saved by this system. I believé, indeed, there are a great many overseers who give their land no aid of any kind, other than that of shifting the cattle from one pen to another, on the spot intended for planting, during three or four months before it is ploughed or holed (i).

(1) This, however, is by no means sufficient on plantations that have been much worn and exhausted by cultivation; and perhaps there is no branch in the planting business wherein attention and systematic arrangement, as saving both time and labour, are more necessary than in collecting and preparing large quantities of dung from the sources and materials before described. In spreading the manure thus collected, the common allowance in the Windward Islands, (where this part of husbandry is best understood) is a square foot of dung to each cane-hole; so that by knowing the number of holes in an acre of land, and the number of square feet in a dung-heap, the manure may be proportioned to the ground. Nothing is more easy than to ascertain the number ef square feet in a dung-heap. Multiply the length by the breadth, and the produce by the height. Thus, 30 feet, the length, multiplied by 30 feet, the breadth, gives 900 feet,

BOOK

V.

WHAT has hitherto been said, however, relates solely to the method of preparing lands for plant-canes. Those who trust chiefly to ratoons, find it as necessary to give their canefields attention and assistance from the time the canes are cut, as it was before they were planted. It is the advice of Colonel Martin, so soon as the canes are carried to the mill, to cut off, by a sharp hoe, all the heads of the canestools, three inches below the surface of the soil, and then fill up the hole with fine mould; by which means, he thinks, that all the sprouts rising from below, will derive more nutriment, and grow more equally and vigorously than otherwise. I know not that this advice is adopted in any of the sugar islands. It is the practice, however, in many parts of Jamaica, to spread baskets full of dung round the stools, so soon after the canes have been cut as circumstances will admit, and the ground has been refreshed by rains: In dry and scorching weather it would be labour lost. The young sprouts are, at the same time, cleared of weeds; and the dung which is spread round them, being covered with cane-trash, that its virtues may not be exhaled by the sun, is found at the end of

which being again multiplied by four feet (the height) gives 3,600 feet, the full contents. This explanation is added for the use of the plain practical planter, who perhaps has had no great opportunity of studying arithmetical calculation.

three

three or four months, to be soaked into and incorporated with the mould At this period the ratoons are again well cleaned, and the spaces between the ranks effectually hoe-ploughed ; after which very little care is thought requisite until the canes are fit for cutting; the ancient practice of trashing ratoons (i. e.) stripping them of their outward leaves, being of late very, generally and justly exploded.

SUCH is the general system of preparing and manuring the lands in Jamaica. I have been told, that more attention is paid to this branch of husbandry, in some of the Islands to Windward; but I suspect that there is, in all of them, very great room for improvement, by means of a judicious rotation of crops, and artificial assistance. Why, for instance, are not the manures of lime and sea-sand, which abound in these islands, and have been found so exceedingly beneficial in Great Britain, brought into use? Limestone alone, even without burning, (the expence of which might perhaps be an objection) has been found to answer in cold, heavy, and moist lands; no other trouble being requisite than merely to spread it over the ground and break it into small pieces by sledgehammers. Of this the quantities are inexhaustible. Marle, is another manure of vast and general utility in Great Britain. It enriches the poorest lands, opens the stiffest, and sweetens

VOL. II.

and

BOOK and corrects the most rank. Lands have been

V.

raised by the use of this manure, from two shillings per acre to a guinea, annual rent. Now there is no country under the sun, wherein a soft unctuous marle more abounds than in Jamaica. To the question, why no trial has yet been made of it? no better answer, I believe, can be given, than that the planters in general have no leisure for experiment, and that it is difficult to make agents and servants (who have every thing to risk and nothing to gain) walk out of the sure and beaten track of daily practice. Every man's experience confirms this obser

vation.

BUT it is not my province to purpose systems, but to record facts;-to describe things as they are, rather than as I conceive they ought to be ; and it is now time to conduct the reader from the field into the boiling-house, and convert the farmer into the manufacturer.

CHAP. II.

Crop-time the season of health and festivity.Mills for grinding the canes.-Of the canejuice, and its component parts.-Process for obtaining raw or muscovado sugar.-Melasses, and its disposal.-Process of making clayed sugar.-Of rum.-Still-houses and stills. Cisterns, and their ingredients.Windward Island process.-Jamaica method of doubling distillation.-Due quantity of rum from a given quantity of sweets, ascertained and stated.

II.

THE time of crop in the sugar islands, is the CHAP. season of gladness and festivity to man and beast. So palatable, salutary, and nourishing is the juice of the cane, that every individual of the animal creation, drinking freely of it, derives health and vigour from its use. The meagre and sickly among the negroes exhibit a surprising alteration in a few weeks after the mill is set in action. The labouring horses, oxen, and mules, though almost constantly at work during this season, yet, being indulged with plenty of the green tops of this noble plant, and some of the scummings from the boiling-house, improve more than at any other period of the year. Even the pigs and poultry fatten on the s 2 refuse.