exclusive: sugab-gbowing. sss 



opinion upon the correctness of liis estimates : but the past 

 history of Trinidad sliows so many failures of the cacao 

 crop, that even a practically ignorant man may be excused 

 for guessing that there is something wrong in the old Spanish 

 system ; and that with cacao, as with wheat and every other 

 known crop, improved culture means improved produce and 

 steadier profits. 



As an advocate of " petite culture," I heartily hope that 

 such may be the case. I have hinted in these volumes my 

 belief that exclusive sugar cultivation, on the large scale, has 

 Ijeen the bane of the AYest Indies. 



I went out thither with a somewhat forei^one conclusion 

 in that direction. But it was at least founded on what I 

 believed to be facts. And it was, certainly, verified by the 

 fresh facts wdiich I saw there. I returned with a belief 

 stronger than ever, that exclusive sugar cultivation had put 

 a premium on unskilled slave-labour, to the disadvantage of 

 skilled white-labour ; and to the disadvantage, also, of any 

 attempt to educate and raise the Xegro, whom it was not 

 worth while to civilize, as long as he was needed merely as 

 an instrument exerting brute strength. It seems to me, also, 

 tliat to the exclusive cultivation of sugar is owing, more than 

 to any other cause, that frightful decrease throughout th 

 islands of the white population, of which most English people 

 are, I believe, fjuite unaware. Do they know, for instance, 



