PEODUCE IN JAMAICA. 251 



arrobas, 3000 or 4000, making 2660 or 3340 kilogrammes 

 of sugar (bianco and quebrado) per hectare. In fixing on 

 1500 arrobas, and estimating the case of sugar at 24 piastres, 

 according to the price of the Havannah, we find that the 

 hectare produces the value of 870 francs in sugar ; and that 

 of 288 francs in wheat, in the supposition of an octuple 

 harvest, and the price of 100 kilogrammes of wheat being 

 18 francs. I have observed elsewhere, that m this com- 

 parison of the two branches of cultivation, it must not be for- 

 gotten that the cultivation of sugar requires great capital ; 

 for instance, at present 400,000 piastres for an annual produc- 

 tion of 32,000 arrobas, or 368,000 kilogrammes, if this 

 quantity be made in one single settlement. At Bengal, in 

 watered lands, an acre (40 i4 square metres) renders 2300 

 kilogrammes of coarse sugar, making 5,700 kilogrammes 

 per hectare. If this fertility is common in lands of great 

 extent, we must not be surprised at the low price of sugar 

 in the East Indies. The produce of a hectare is double 

 that of the best soil in the West Indies, and the price of 

 a free Indian day-labourer, is not one-third the price of the 

 day-labour of a negro slave in the island of Cuba. 



In Jamaica, in 1825, a plantation of five hundred acres 

 (or fifteen and a half caballerias), of which two hundred 

 acres are cultivated in sugar-cane, yields, by the labour of 

 two hundred slaves, one hundred oxen, and fifty mules, 

 2800 cwt., or 142,200 kilogrammes of sugar, and is com- 

 puted to be worth, with its', slaves, 43,000/. sterling. Ac- 

 cording to this estimate of Mr. Stewart, one hectare would 

 yield 1760 kilogrammes of coarse sugar; for such is the 

 quality of the sugar furnished for commerce at Jamaica. 

 Keckoning in a great sugar-fabric of the Havannah 25 

 caballerias or 325 hectares for a produce of from 32,OuO tc 

 40,000 cases, we find 1130 or 1420 kilogrammes of refined 

 sugar (bianco and quebrado) per hectare. This result 

 agrees sufficiently with that of Jamaica, if we consider the 

 loss sustained in the weight of sugar by refining, in con- 

 verting the coarse sugar into azucar bianco y quebrado) or 

 refined sugar. At San Domingo, a square (3403 square 

 toises = 1*29 hectare) is estimated at forty, and sometimes 

 at sixty quintals : if we fix on 5000 pounds, we still find 

 1900 kilogrammes of coarse sugar per hectare. Supposing, 



