" Changes on Sugar Estates." 207 



cane sugar in its manufaftory, was then not the formi- 

 dable rival it afterwards became ; it was the improved 

 machinery and economy used in the produ6lion of beet 

 sugar that compelled us to keep up with these changes ; 

 and I shall briefly show a few of the improvements in 

 consequence. 



In I865 vacuum pan estates were in the minority, as 

 compared with muscovado. Haarlem at that time bore the 

 palm, both as to quantity and quality of output. The late 

 Mr. J. R. Bascom was then manager, and my estemed 

 friend and old boss, Mr. JOHN T. Thorne, now Magis- 

 trate on the East Coast, head overseer; and I know Mr. 

 Bascom drew in five years commissions on ;{^5o,ooOj — 

 something different from to-day, This estate was one of 

 the first amalgamated estates ; it was joined to Windsor 

 Forest^ which then made muscovado sugar, and of such a 

 quality that I, then fresh from Barbados, felt how far be- 

 hind Demerara was to that place in its manufa6lure of that 

 quality of sugar. How changed my opinion is to-day ; 

 and if the departed Bascoms, who either owned or 

 managed the estates that now comprise this fine property, 

 were to see it now, they would also have to exclaim : What 

 a change ! Leonora was then a muscovado estate, Anna 

 Catherina a vacuum pan estate, and indeed one of 

 the first in the colony. Changes again. Leonora is the 

 vacuum pan estate with all its fine appliances, and ^««« 

 Catherina only a part of it, no longer existing as a sugar 

 estate; and so it is throughout the colony. Wakenaam, 

 then so prosperous, is now reduced to two sugar estates, 

 and nothing but improved machinery could have kept 

 them alive; and so tar has amalgamation gone that Anna 

 Regina, one of the landmarks of the colony, is now 



DD2 



