412 



THF TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1884. 



the crops worked off in the three years ending in 1870. 

 In Guadeloupe the almost absolute exhaustion of the cane 

 juice was effected by it ; and in Louisiana, by the com- 

 petitive trials of pressure and diffusion made in 1S74, a 

 surplus was shown in favour of diffusion over mill of from 

 40 to 43 per cent, obtained at a cost of but 1*30$ more 

 per 1,000 lb. of sugar and molasses. But whether diffusion 

 is in ordinary practice the process most suited for eco- 

 nomic use iu cane-sugar making, and would be as fully ap- 

 plicable to the caue as other processes, remains still to be 

 determined. In growth and structure the caue is dissimilar 

 to the beet. The one has a long slender stalk above ground, 

 formed of strong paralled fibres, and divided by knots 

 every few inches apart. The other has a short stem dis- 

 tended under ground, made of vascular pulp, and with a 

 long tap root. And as they differ in substance, the tendency 

 of the sugar and water to pass through the walls of the 

 closed cell until equalised by transference, which is the 

 condition of diffusion, will vary in some degree. But the 

 position of the sugar cells in the cane, the largest number 

 being found about the softer parts in the middle, should 

 make it easier to displace the sugar by diffusion than to 

 expel it by pressure through the rind. Defective, however, 

 as the ordinary machinery for extracting the cane juice 

 confessedly is, this is not the only or chief difficulty in 

 the way of an extended sugar production. A greater 

 obstacle is perhaps the want of time and labour in harvest. 

 The canes, of which the gross quantity is enormous when 

 compared in bulk with other crops, have to be cut, carried, 

 and converted into sugar within the short space of three 

 or four months. In maufacturing beet sugar, on the con- 

 tary, the period of working can be extended over a longer 

 time, and the roots kept for later use, or till germination 

 begins in spring, by storing them in pits. And it were a 

 thing much to be desired, if the means of relief could like- 

 wise be found for the cane-sugar maker. 



Great interest is shown in discussions upon the beet-sugar 

 bounties, which are an evil, regarded from the refiners' 

 point of view, that is not unmixed with good to the 

 people of this country, but indifference appears to be 

 profound on the subject of cane sugar. And yet it is in- 

 disputable that we, with our tropical possessions, are as 

 distinctly a cane-growing people, as on the Continent they 

 are beet growers. Vt r e are concerned not so much with 

 how they manage things in France and Germany, as with 

 what we can do to double and treble the produce of our 

 own sugar-fields. The consumption of sugar per head of 

 the population of these islands has more than doubled in 

 the last quarter of a century. And were it not for the 

 largely-increased supply of beet, the price also would have 

 been very appreciably affected. The relief of their wants 

 recived from the cane by those who take sugar has been 

 small in comparison to that given by the beet. On a 

 decennial estimate, the contributes only an additional 

 amount of 277,058 tons, against an increased yearly quantity 

 of 087.004 tons furnished by the beet. The relative figures 

 for the two periods are — cane sugar, 1872, 1,782,607 tons; 

 1882, 2,060,585 tous ; beet sugar, 1872. 873,000 tons ; 1882, 

 1,860.904 tons. The cane is thus seen to be no longer the 

 most important factor in the sugar market ; and the 

 superiority of the beet in this respect is further shown by 

 the crop of the following year, 1883, with its enormous 

 yield of 2,146,534 tons of sugar. No wonder, then, if ex- 

 aggerated ideas of its potentiality in the future should 

 be conceived, and the beet be looked upon as king, going 

 on ruling, and to rule the markets. The legitimate claim, 

 however, of the cane to the first place iu the market of 

 this country will very generally be admitted. But its 

 restoration can only be brought about by producing good 

 and cheap sugar more abundantly. And how is this to be 

 done ? It is an important question in endeavouring to 

 deal with which it may be allowable to make one or two 

 suggestions. To say we are not justified in trying experi- 

 ments, and must let improvement wait upon success, is 

 to wait behind. As a good field for action, therefore, take 

 Jamaica. It is easy of access, and its natural advantages 

 of soil, water, and climate enable it to compete with other 

 sugar-growing countries. The island has, unfortunately, 

 suffered a long period of decadency, since the time of 

 emancipation, aud of the Act of 1846, equalising the duties 

 on free and slave-labour sugar. But the official returns 

 show that there was uo decrease in the value of the staple 



and other products during the ten years ending iu 1880. 

 And if the year 1881 was a bad year, from blight and 

 other causes, the year 1882 was a " bumper," and the 

 exports of sugar, regard being had to the increased size 

 of the hogshead, were the largest of any year since 1x47 

 —signs that present a good augury for the" future. There 

 is evidence, too. that the black aud coloured population, 

 already numbering more than half a million, are becoming 

 sensible of new wants, and feeling a desire even for luxuries. 

 The continual extension of provision grounds must cease 

 to be profitable, or to provide a lazy subsistence, and the 

 Negro, if he would have the means for an enlarged ex- 

 penditure, will be compelled to prosecute the cultivation 

 of the old commercial products of the country that are 

 in repute abroad. Labourers for sugar estates are said to 

 be scarce in some districts, but are commonly to be hired 

 at from 5s. 3d. to 8s. 9d. per week of five days, the 

 people not caring, or being pushed by want, to turn out 

 on Saturday. And hundreds of men have left the island 

 for Colon, engaged to work on the Panama Canal for wages 

 of ten cents per hour; a strong proof that employment 

 is not plentiful, and of a willingness to seek it under the 

 attraction of good pay. Much land is lying waste and un- 

 productive in both pubiic and private ownership. The area 

 under cultivation, including pasture, is 554,162 acres, out 

 of which the average acreage under cane for five years, 

 ending 1881, was only 43,909 acres. Of that vacant cult- 

 ivable land a part might be very well applied to the 

 growth of canes, and by the introduction of the East 

 India system of farming, turned to good account. In India 

 the ryot, as the peasant farmer is called, has usually in 

 his holding a small patch of sugar cane growing with his 

 other crops. The produce he makes into goor, or raw 

 concrete sugar, and sells to the refiner, who turns it into 

 clean white sugar for consumption. Aud experience shows 

 that the ryot, giving his immediate care aud attention to 

 the work, and aided by wife and children, does better 

 and more economically than a factory or sugar works, 

 dependent on hired labour, and having the supervision of 

 an extended area, can manage to do. The ryot has his 

 plough, bullocks, rude crushing mill, and boiling pans, and 

 when iu want of money can, on the security of his interest 

 in the land, obtain advances from the native hanker. The 

 adoption in Jamaica of this system is, however, not ad- 

 visable in its entirety, but only so much of its as relates 

 to the culture of the land, which, by the consension of 

 opinion in India, is best left in native hands. The negro 

 is not so inferior in capacity to the ryot that he could 

 not, if put in the way and helped in the beginning, farm 

 his small holding as efficiently, and secure in a market 

 for his canes, do it' successfully. The small agriculturists 

 in Jamaica, making their couple of casks of sugar yearly, 

 of whom there were 5.615 in 1871, though reduced in 

 number to 4,700 in 1880, witness to this. But their ex- 

 ample in being sugar makers is to be followed rather in 

 the avoidance. With the cropping of the canes the proper 

 work of the agriculturist ceases. The extraction of the 

 sugar in them requires skill of another kind, and separate 

 machinery; a fact that seems naturally to indicate a 

 division of labour between the planter and the sugar 

 maker, as there is between the paddy grower and the rice 

 miller. Supposing, then, an estate, with 300 acres of suit- 

 able land, to be laid out in plots of convenient size for 

 cultivation by a family, say 5, 10, or 15 acres, and let 

 to the occupants at a fair rent on a fixed settlement, 

 either perpetual or subject to revision after a period of 

 years, there would be on the a'verage 30 families, and 

 counting the usual five iu a family, a populatiou of 150 

 attached to the land ; a number that should afford more 

 than a sufficiency of labour for its proper cultivation, 

 6iuce from two to three labourers are enough to plant 

 from 8 to 10 acres ; and if it were made a firm stipulation 

 of the teuancy that three-fourths of the holding should 

 be kept in cane-bearing, the sugar-works would only have 

 to provide a supply of labour, required concurrently with 

 the machinery, to convert the canes into concrete sugar 

 for refining. In these small holdings there might, at first, 

 be little room for any but the commonest implements 

 of husbandry, yet opportunity would come to introduce 

 carrying and other labour-saving machinery in aid of the 

 manual labour of the occupiers. Formerly land, mill, and 

 people made one machine, but the people have since be- 



