AGRICULTURE IN 1829. 249 
the cultivation will in time cause as great a diversion of 
labour as the pra€tice of manuring itself would. Ploughs 
have been from time to time imported and have been 
found to answer in turning uplands that have been 
long cultivated, but after the first essay, no further 
occasion has been found for their use, till they were 
rotten. At this moment a cart is an extraordinary ma- 
chine in the country, and a horse or mule with a pack- 
saddle is nowhere to be seen. Indeed so much has the 
colony availed itself of its advantages for navigation that 
every estate by its navigable canal, and the use of boats, 
renders unnecessary the ordinary implement of land 
carriage. To explain these circumscances it will be 
necessary to add, that all estates except those in the 
rivers, begin at the sea coast and run between parallel 
lines, to unlimited distances in the interior. 
The coast lands also, for some miles inland, are from 
one extremity to the other of the colony uniformly level, 
and when this level terminates the soil is found unfit for 
cultivation ; navigation therefore meets with no impedi- 
ment and the Planter has always a resource in the forest 
behind him, The following remarks may not be free 
from error from the want of more general discussion ; 
they are principally compiled from personal observations, 
A sugar estate of 300 negroes with all the works and 
proper extent of cultivation will be worth £60,000 at the 
present valuation. It will produce from 500 to 600 hhds. 
with proper management. This crop worth from £7,500 
to £9,000 is, including interest, 8 or 10 years’ purchase. 
But it is seldom an estate can be bought with all these 
preliminary advantages, so that 12 or 15 years may not 
be an unreasonable time allowed to clear the capital, 
