OBTAINING MEN FOR BEATING. 251 



other people, they will readily assist, because 

 they wish to have the hogs destroyed, and their 

 reluctance to assist in beating their own, arises 

 from the injury they generally see done to them, 

 by the beaters breaking them down and eating 

 the cane. If not well looked after, they will 

 be chewing cane all the time they are in it, which 

 makes it necessary to have a servant between 

 every eight or ten men. 



Although the injury done to canes by hogs 

 residing in them, is ten times as great as the 

 the injury done by beating them, it is often not 

 seen or discovered until the cane is cut the hogs 

 generally lying in the central part, and eating it 

 in detached places. Sometimes they will eat it 

 bare for a considerable space round the spot 

 where they lie, which is generally, though not 

 always, discovered; yet I have known them to 

 destroy nearly half an acre of cane in this man- 

 ner without its being known to the proprietor 

 that a hog was in it (so he protested.) For 

 the foregoing reasons, I consider the most effec- 

 tual procedure to be, to apply for people Jiving at 

 a distance from the canes you intend beating, and 

 if it be from towns or large villages, you will be 

 more likely to succeed in getting the number you 



