194 



HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE. 



Part I. 



piazza, with comfortable glazed windows (to rise and fall occasionally), will answer all the purposes of a 

 dining and breakfast hall, and for walking in. Large centre halls in such houses are of very little use, 

 take up a great deal of room, are very expensive, and make the house large, without any real convenience. 

 A small back piazza, made comfortable by moving blinds with stops, would be proper for the servants. 

 I think every dwelling-house on a plantation should have a small fire-place in it, with a well-raised 

 chimney, for fire to be made in occasionally in damp weather ; it will be wholesome and preservative. The 

 fire-place should be in an extreme angle of the dining piazza, and the overseer's cooking-room, washing- 

 room, &c., should be apart from the house, though not far off", conveniently fitted up, and of moderate 

 size. The little appendages of a hog-sty, fowl-house, &c., to raise small stock in, are easily built at a 

 small expense. {Roughley, 184, 185.) 



1206. A lime-^kiln is an essential building for a sugar estate, a considerable quantity of lime being wanted 

 to nedtralise the acid of the expressed juice of the cane. A fixed kiln at the works is best, as what lime 

 is wanted can then be burnt at any time ; but it often happens that temporary kilns, composed of layers 

 of stones and wood, with a funnel in the centre, are made in the woods, lighted and burnt, and the pro- 

 duce carried home. Such a kiln, twenty feet in diameter, and ten or twelve feet high, will produce lime 

 enough to make sixteen hogsheads of sugar. {lb., 314.) 



1207. The houses of the slaves are grouped together on some estates, and scattered in different places in 

 others, generally on the outskirts of the estate. They are low cottages of one or two apartments, with 

 open sheds, and pieces of garden ground of from one eighth to one quarter of an acre attached to each, 

 and some of them are kept neat, and have a clean, not uncomfortable, appearance ; they are generally 

 built with stone, and covered with shingles. 



1208. Every building composing the works of a sugar estate should be formed of the most substantial 

 materials, durable, hard, well-seasoned timber, well put together, and supported by the best mason 

 work. They should be shingled instead of being thatched, and kept free from the hungry destructive 

 ant, who, by his mighty though diminutive efforts, will level a substantial building to the ground 

 Iti u short time. Poisoning by arsenic is the most expedient mode of getting rid of them, as the living 

 will feed on the dead, so that the whole nest (by devouring one another) are thus killed. {lb., 194.) 



1209. The live stock of a sugar estate consists chiefly of oxen^ spayed heifers, and mules, as beasts of labour : 

 the overseer generally keeps a riding horse, as does the resident agent or proprietor, if there are such ; 

 and there are pigs and poultry, with some sheep for consumption. The cattle and mules are kept on the 

 savannas or open waste pastures, and on Guinea grass (Panicum) and Scotch grass (i'anicum hirtellum) 

 {fig. 162. a), on which they are folded, tethered, or soiled. Mares and Spanish or Maltese jackasses re 

 kept for breeding the mules ; and the cattle are in general reared on the estate, A jack should be from 

 ten to twelve hands high, and either stubbled or put nito a close pasture, with high firm walls and gates 

 to it. He should be regularly corned once a day at least ; should have pure water to drink, and should not 

 be suffered to cover more than one mare daily. The mares should be put to him in season, and attended by 

 an experienced groom. A proper covering pit should be made for the mare to stand in, with a sur- 

 mounting stage for the jack to stand on. They should be daily led out to exercise, kept well cleaned, 

 and by no means allowed to stay out in bad weather, but be comfortably stabled, foddered, and littered. 

 (/6., 141, 142.) 



1210. The agricultural operations of Jamaica are for the most part performed by the 

 manual labour of indigenous slaves ; but there are also free servants, and the period, it is 

 to be hoped, is rapidly approaching when the whole population will be emancipated. 

 The soil is seldom either ploughed or dug, but generally worked with the hoe-pick. 

 The spade the negroes are awkward at using ; and they are not more expert at the plough. 

 White ploughmen have been imported by some cultivators ; but the prejudices of the 

 overseers, the awkwardness of the oxen and negro drivers, and the effects of the climate 

 in wearing out the spirits of the ploughman, are said to have discouraged its use. Long, 

 in 1774, Dr. Stokes [Young's Annals of Agr., xviii. 148.), and others, have tried the 

 plough, and strongly recommend it, as doing the work better and lessening the necessity 

 of having so many slaves. Roughley, however, 

 who was " nearly twenty years a sugar planter 

 in Jamaica" (Jamaica Planter's Guide, 1823), is 

 decidedly against it, whether drawn by negroes 

 or cattle ; both because it does not do the work 

 so well as the hoe, and because of the difficulty 

 of getting ploughmen and properly trained beasts. 

 It is probable, however, that necessity may ulti- 

 mately lead to the use of the plough drawn byl 

 oxen, and that the operative man in the West In- 

 dia Islands will in time assume the santte attitude 

 as in Europe. 



1211. The agricultural productions of Jamaica 

 of the greatest importance are sugar, indigo, 

 coffee, and cotton. The several species of grain 

 cultivated in this island are maize, or Guinea 

 com, yielding from thirty to sixty bushels an 

 acre ; various kinds of calavances, a species 

 of pea ; and rice, but in no great quantity. The 

 island abounds also with different kinds of grass 

 of excellent quality : the artificial grass, called 

 " Scots grass" (Pinicum hirtellum) (fg. 163. a), 

 grows spontaneously in most of the swamps 

 and morasses of the West Indies ; and it is so 

 productive, that a single acre of it will main- 

 tain five horses for a whole year. The " Guinea- 

 grass " (P. polygamum) (Jig. 163. b) is next in 

 importance to the sugar-cane, as the grazing and breeding farms are'chicfly supported 



