264 Professor Traill on the Cultivation of 
sugar-mills. Some of the works were ruined during the sub- 
sequent war ; but many of them were still in existence at the 
period of my journey in 1814. The finest and most perfect 
sugar estate I saw was that belonging to Messrs Grevigny and 
Kirkpatrick of Malaga, of which I shall presently give some 
details, furnished by the latter gentleman. The mode of 
cultivation there was on the most approved system of the 
English planters in the West Indies; the works were very 
complete, and produced, in good years, 4600 loaves of white 
sugar—the produce of canes grown on not more than 38 
English acres of good land. Many of the other plantations, 
however, are very small; and such cultivators usually sell 
their canes to the larger proprietors, or several of them unite 
in erecting a mill and boiling-house for the fabrication of 
muscovado sugar. 
On large plantations the ground is prepared by the plompiig 
but on almost all those I visited the labour is chiefly perform- 
ed by the spade, and by a species of large hand-hoe. The 
principle, however, of preparing the ground is similar in them 
all. 
The soil best adapted for sugar-cane is a rich loam, light, 
and of a brown colour when recently turned up. The gene- 
ral soil of all this district is clay, much mixed with calcareous 
matter. The best soil usually rests on clay-slate, and this on 
mica-slate ; but around Velezmalaga limestone covers the slate. 
The soil should not be too retentive of moisture, but occa- 
sionally requires irrigation, which is ingeniously effected by 
means of earthenware tubes, that convey the water either 
from the streams descending from the mountains, or what is 
raised by means of the noria, or Persian wheel—a common 
mode of procuring water in Andalusia since the time of the 
Moorish conquest. The water is conveyed to the upper parts 
of the sugar-fields, whence it is permitted to escape into chan- 
nels cut for its distribution to the roots of the canes. 
When a plantation is to be formed, the land is duly prepar- 
ed, by digging or ploughing to the depth of 8 or 10 inches; 
paths are left for convenient access to the canes ; the soil is 
enriched by compost manures of animal dung, mixed with de- 
caying vegetables and earthy matters ; and the field is divided 
