Book I. 



AGJIICULTURE IN NORTH AMERICA. 



197 



be dug deep, two feet long by sixteen inches broad, to give room for the large ponderous plantain 

 sucker to be placed in them. The mould must be hauled 

 up to the edge of the hole, and broke if too large. The 

 plantain suckers being ready and trimmed, each negro 

 should take some, and place one good sucker at every hole 

 in the piece, and begin to plant them, by taking a sucker, 

 and placing it with the butt, or rooty end, in the bottom 

 of the hole; make the sucker lie in a leaning, reclining, or 

 half horizontal position in the hole, with the small, or sucker 

 end of the plant, a little above the ground ; and when thus 

 placed, draw the mould from the bank, and cover the plant 

 well with it, leaving a little of the plant above the ground. 

 In this manner the plantain walk should be formed. In a 

 few weeks (if the weather is favorable) the young plantain- 

 shoot will be seen rearing its perpendicular head, perhaps 

 three or four growing from the same stock. They should 

 then be carefully moulded, and cleared of grass and weeds 

 when they are a few inches high. No cavities, or water- 

 logging holes, should be near them. The banks must be le- 

 velled about them, the holes filled, and properly closed up, 

 and some fine mould given them, to encourage their growth. 

 There will be no occasion to give them more than two 

 mouldings till they are established ; but they must be care- 

 fully kept clear from weeds or grass; and when any dry 

 trash happens to be hanging about them, it should be gentry 

 cut off with a knife, and placed about their roots, to keep 

 them either free from too much sun or chill. A plantain-walk, well taken care of, will be in bearing 

 twelve months after it is planted, amply repaying for the labor and trouble of planting it, and giving 

 an almost inexhaustible supply of fine provisions, if the vicissitudes of hurricanes or storms (which this 

 climate is unhappily subject to) does not destroy it, and which no human foresight or care can pre- 

 vent. When a plantain-walk is made, there may be a row of cocoas (1192.) in the middle of the ten feet 

 si>aces, which will yield a crop by the time the plantain-walk bears fruit, but they must then be pulled 

 up. A few banana {Musa sapientiim) suckers can be planted in the plantain -row, instead of plantain- 

 .suckers; sometimes they are much in request, as a luscious, wholesome fruit, and for the strong, fine- 

 flavored vinegar which is produced from them. After this piece of ground is thus planted, the whole 

 of it may be sown with corn (maize), which will not injure the plaintain-suckers, or trees, if it is not 

 too close or thick. {Roughley, p. 413. 416.) 



1194. The Indian arrow-root {Maranta arundinacea) is cultivated, and yields an annual supply of roots, 

 which being washed, bruised, and compressed, yield a starch esteemed as a very light wholesome food 

 for invalids. 



1195. Other plants, in great variety, are cultivated both for culinary and medicinal purposes, and in the 

 gardens of the overseers and agents almost every fruit in the world may be raised. 



119P. The penguin {Bromelia penguin) is grown on the tops of ditches, and forms an impenetrable fence. 



1197. Maize is grown among the canes, and in fields by itself in rows, four feet and a half apart, and the 

 corn dibbled or set in patches of four seeds in a space six inches square. 



1198. Guinea grass {Panicimi polygonum, fig. 199 b.), and Scotch grass {fig. 199 o.), are the clovers or 

 artificial herbage plants of Jamaica. They are perennial, and grow in small enclosures, which are either 

 eaten down or mown. Cane tops, the leaves of maize, millet, and a variety of other herbage, is given to 

 the mules or cattle. 



1 1 99. Rats, antSt and other vermin, greatly annoy the canes : ticks (aestrus ?) of dif- 

 ferent kinds, and flies, greatly annoy the cattle, and a great variety of evil propensities 



' and diseases' assail the negroes and their children : among others Obea, and what Rough- 

 ley calls " eating dirt," which he thus characterises: " Too much tenderness gives the 

 child a fretful longing for the mother, and her scanty milk engendering disease, and, 

 what is worse than all, often (though secretly) giving it a growing liking for the hateful, 

 fatal habit of eating dirt, than which nothing is more horribly disgusting, nothing more 

 to be dreaded, nothing exhibiting a more heart-rending, ghastly spectacle, than a negro 

 child possessed of this malady. Such is the craving appetite for this abominable cus- 

 tom, that few, either children or adults, can be broken of it, when once they begin to 

 taste and swallow its insidious slow poison. For if by incessant care, watchfulness, or 

 keeping them about the dwelling-house, giving them abundance of the best nourishing 

 food, stomachic medicines, and kind treatment, it is possible to counteract the effects 

 and habit of it for some time, the creature will be found wistfully and irresistibly to steal 

 an opportunity of procuring and swallowing the deadly substance. The symptoms 

 arising from it are a shortness of breathing, almost perpetual languor, irregular throbbing, 

 weak pulse, a horrid cadaverous aspect, the lips and whites of the eyes a deadly pale 

 (the sure signs of malady in the Negro), the tongue thickly covered with scurf, violent 

 palpitation of the heart, inordinate swelled belly, the legs and arms reduced in size and 

 muscle, the whole appearance of the body becomes a dirty yellow, the flesh a quivering 

 pellucid jelly. The creature sinks into total indifference, insensible to every thing 

 around him till death at last declares his victory in his dissolution. This is no exag- 

 gerated account of the effects and termination of this vile and hateful propensity. (/6. 

 118. 120.) 



1 200. The agriculture of the other West India islands may be considered as similar to that 

 of Jamaica. So many different kinds of East India fruits have not yet been introduced 

 in them; but the great articles of sugar, coffee, cotton, indigo, pepper, &c. are every 

 where cultivated. One of the richest of these islands is St. Domingo, now independent, 

 and known by its original name of Hayti. 



O 3 



