224 TRINIDAD. 



Sugar is found in many plants ; but it is mainly manufactured 

 from the sugar-cane and beet-root. The sugar industry has, of 

 late years, made rapid and signal progress ; the beet-root has, by 

 careful cultivation, and scientific appliances to the manufacture 

 of sugar, become the source from which is obtained nearly one- 

 half of the whole quantity of sugar produced in our days, so 

 much so that the chances are that we will succumb in the com- 

 petition, unless we pay greater attention to the culture of the 

 cane and the manufacture of sugar. Our sugar industry, I 

 grieve to say, is going to ruin on account of the imperfect 

 methods followed. The time has arrived which imperatively 

 calls for a change of system. 



The science of husbandry is no longer that confused congeries 

 of incoherent precepts, which for so long a period formed its 

 fundamental structure. Taught by chemistry and meteorological 

 observations, it has, by degrees, assumed among the other 

 sciences the high position to which it is eminently entitled. 

 But the precepts of that science vary in their application with 

 the climate, the soil, and the different properties of the plants 

 themselves; so that methods of culture, though based on 

 uniform principles, are but the digested result of a series of 

 individual observations, made under the same climate and in 

 various localities, not only respecting tillage, manuring, plant- 

 ing, drainage, &c, but also regarding the economical manage- 

 ment of properties. Hence the great utility of agricultural 

 societies, of agronomic stations, or at least of occasional agricul- 

 tural meetings, at which any member possessing aught of 

 interest to communicate might contribute his quota of informa- 

 tion to the general stock. I am sorry to say, however, that the 

 proceedings of our planters are generally governed by egotistical 

 individualism. Instead of widening the circle of his observa- 

 tions, each individual seems satisfied with contracting it within 

 the bounds of the estate which he manages. Further still, not 

 a few conceal from their nearer neighbours their success as well 

 as their failures ; for they are under the impression that their : 

 knowledge is more enlarged, their experience more sound, and 

 their system superior; some even refrain from friendly inter- 

 course, lest they should be taken by surprise, and thereby 

 disclose some important secret, of which each conceives himseli 

 the sole possessor. But let those who imagine they have little 



