250 PROFITS OP SUGAE MAKINCK 



expences of the plantation : this is especially the case where 

 they produce brandy in abundance. Thirty-two thousand 

 arrobas of sugar yield 15,000 bariles de miel (at two arrobas), 

 of which five hundred pipas de aguardiente de cana are made, 

 at twenty-five piastres. 



In establishing an yngenio capable of furnishing two 

 thousand caxas yearly, a capitalist would draw, according to 

 the old Spanish method, and at the present price of sugar, an 

 interest of six and one-sixth per cent. ; an interest no way 

 considerable for an establishment not merely agricultural, 

 and of which the expense remains the same, although the 

 produce sometimes diminishes more than a third. It is very 

 rarely that one of those great yngenios can make 32,000 

 cases of sugar during several successive years. It cannot 

 therefore be matter of surprise that when the price of sugar in 

 the island of Cuba has been very low (four or five piastres the 

 quintal), the cultivation of rice has been preferred to that of the 

 sugar-cane. The profit of the old landowners (haciendados) 

 consists, 1st, in the circumstance that the expenses of the 

 settlement were much less twenty or thirty years ago, when 

 a caballeria of good land cost only 1200 or 1600 piastres, 

 instead of 2500 to 3000 ; and the adult negro 300 piastres, 

 instead of 450 to 500 ; 2nd, in the balance of the very 

 low and the very high prices of sugar. These prices are so 

 different in a period of ten years, that the interest of the 

 capital varies from five to fifteen per cent. In the year 

 ] 804, for instance, if the capital employed had been only 

 100,000 piastres, the raw produce, according to the value of 

 sugar and rum, would have amounted to 94,000 piastres. 

 Now, from 1797 to 1800, the price of a case of sugar was 

 sometimes, mean value, forty piastres instead of twenty- 

 four, which I was obliged to suppose in the calculation for 

 the year 1825. When a sugar-house, a great manufac- 

 ture, or a mine, is found in the hands of the person who first 

 formed the establishment, the estimate of the rate of inte- 

 rest which the capital employed yields to the proprietor, can 

 be no guide to those who, purchasing afterwards, balance the 

 advantages of different kinds of industry. 



In soils that can be watered, or where plants with tube- 

 rose roots have preceded the cultivation of the sugar- 

 cane, a caballeria of fertile land yields, instead of 1500 



