IMPROVEMENTS IN AGRICULTURE. 



33 



for planting the cane, can be performed better with the 

 plough than with the hoe, and that there is no necessity 

 for employing any labourers in the process, except the 

 persons required to manage the ploughs. The weeding 

 also which is required between the rows of canes can be 

 performed by the horse-hoe or cultivator, which is easily 

 drawn by a horse or a stout mule, and only requires 

 one person to manage it. 



By adopting this course the Planter can at once dispense 

 with his gangs of holers, cross-holers, and the greater 

 part of his weeders, so that he will have an abundance 

 of labourers at moderate wages, for those operations in 

 which they are necessary, and thus be enabled to secure 

 the only advantage which the proprietor of slaves possesses 

 over the employer of free-labourers, a continuity of labour. 

 which, for the process of manufacture to be correctly accom- 

 plished, is indispensable. This will avoid the necessity for 

 expending money, in the meantime, in immigration, as the 

 supply of labourers in the British West Indies is quite 

 sufficient, if their labour be judiciously applied, to keep in 

 cultivation all the estates which were cultivated during the 

 time of slavery.* 



TYTien the prejudices of the Planters were so far over- 

 come as to admit the use of the plough at all, which 

 was only accomplished by the great perseverance of the 



* Of course, these remarks on immigration do not apply to such Colo- 

 nies as Trinidad, which have never been more than partially settled, and 

 where, as new land is taken up, an increase of population is required. 



D 



