SOIL. 



131 



to plant cane upon the lands which reach down 

 to the edge of the mangroves, and in a few in- 

 stances pieces of land, heretofore covered by 

 the salt-water at the flow of the tide, have 



His account of this affair still continues, but I have tran- 

 scribed the more important part of it. 



The master of the grammar-school at Itamaraca, told me 

 that he acted in the same manner with respect to a quantity 

 of cane which he once planted upon a piece of land that was 

 afterwards cultivated by me ; he was satisfied that this was 

 the better plan, when the land is in the state which Labat 

 describes ; but the people in general thought that he was 

 mad, until crop-time came, and then they changed their 

 opinion. 



In another work Labat says, " he terrain nouvellement 

 dejriche, tiant naturellement gras et humide, et sa situation le 

 rendant encore aqueux, les Cannes qu'il produit, sont a la verite 

 grosses, grandes, pleincs de sue ; mais ce sue est gras et aqueux ; 

 il est par consequent plus long d cuire, plus difficile a purifier, 

 de sorte qu'il Jaudra abbatre et mettre au moulin plus de cannes, 

 purifier et cuire plus de jus ou de sue pourfiaire tine barrique 

 de Sucre, qu'il n'enfaut & la Martinique pour en fa ire quatre." 

 Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais a Cayenne, &c. torn. iii. 

 204. In the little experience which 1 had, I was surprised 

 to find an increase or decrease in the quantity of the product 

 of the same number of cart-loads of cane from different quar- 

 ters of the plantation : but my mind was then too much 

 occupied to allow me to look for the cause of this. 



At the time that Labat wrote his account of the French 

 portion of the Columbian islands, (from 1693 to 1705,) they 

 were in a state which resembled much that of Brazil in the 

 present day ; that is, the colonists were forming establish- 

 ments and clearing lands ; agriculture was in a rude state, 

 and as sugar-colonies were then, comparatively speaking, 

 new things, improvements were daily striking the thinking 



K <2 



