107 



below the surface, affording a supply of nourishment for suc- 

 cessive years. A preferable method, practised by some, is to 

 obtain other crops from the soil during the period of the fal- 

 low. Thus yams, sweet potatoes, arrow-root, or any other 

 tuberous rooted plant may be cultivated and allowed to re- 

 main in the land, as is the practice of the farmers in England 

 with beet. A late intelligent planter was in the habit of 

 planting his fallow land with the pigeon pea, [Ci/tisns Cajan.) 

 He thus obtained a wholesome food for his negroes; the 

 decaying leaves served as manure; and the branches and 

 stems answered the purposes of firewood. 



That some respite is required by cane land cannot be 

 denied. This is still more evident when we reflect that it is 

 a gramineous plant — a class of vegetables which, above all 

 others, produces exhaustion in land — no soil for a series of 

 years is capable of supporting an uninterrupted succession of 

 crops of the cultivated grasses. Hence the necessity of imi- 

 tating the rotation of crops observed by the British farmer; 

 otherwise we may apprehend the same consequences with 

 which other countries have been visited, such as Northern 

 Africa, and Asia Minor, where, by an unlimited exportation 

 of corn, the most fertile regions of the earth have been con- 

 verted into frightful and arid wastes. 



The burning of lands is carried to a blameable extent in 

 some parts of the island, it being a common practice of many 

 planters to consume by fire the weeds and trash left on the 

 previous cutting. Its effects are, to destroy an excess of 

 vegetable matter, and to diminish the coherence of soils, and 

 consequently render them less retentive of moisture. Burn- 

 ing is, of course, admissible in newly cleared lands, espe- 

 cially on the plains ; the first Canes raised being so rich in 

 vegetable matter as to yield a produce little differing from 



molasses. It is also of service to clayey or marly soils, which, 



from being stiff and damp, are thus rendered dry and powdery 

 But it is evident that it can serve no useful end when the 

 land has been long in cultivation, especially if it he loose and 

 gravelly. It is indeed a practice to be entirely reprehended, 

 as a wasteful expenditure of the strength of the land, without 



-^-c.:^ 



