PRESENT SYSTE3I OF CULTIVATION. 



19 



sunied considerable time, and in dry weather the ground 

 was so exceedingly tough and hard, from never having 

 been perfectly tilled, that very little progress could be 

 made. In general each person would dig from fifty to one 

 hundred cane-holes in a day, although I have seen much 

 more pretended to be done by task-work, but in such 

 cases very imperfectly, the earth being merely scratched 

 into the form of the cane-hole. 



The manure, partly made up in pens in the fields, to 

 which it was to be applied, and partly carted from the 

 homestead, and deposited in the intervals between the 

 fields, was usually distributed with baskets, and placed on 

 the spaces left between the holes befors cross-holing, the 

 mould from this last operation serving to cover the manure. 

 Sometimes, however, it was thrown into the hole after 

 cross-holing^ and lightly covered with earth, till the time 

 approached for planting, when it was dug out and drawn 

 on the bank, or by the side of it. 



It generally happened that only a portion of the manure 

 for the crop was made up in time to be applied before the 

 planting of the canes, indeed some Planters rather preferred 

 its application during the growth of the plant, in which 

 case it was carried in baskets and applied round the 

 bunches of the growing canes, during temporary cessations, 

 or after the close of the sugar making season. 



The earlier the operation of digging the cane-holes could 

 be performed, the more creditable to the judgment and exer- 

 tion of the Planter, although this depended, in some de- 



