Two Days nm a Sugar Plantation. 575 
Those who read reports of Jamaica will gather that each 
labourer is supplied with a cutlass, a bill-hook, and a hoe, 
not as weapons of offence, but for agricultural purposes. 
As the growth of vegetation is very rapid, it becomes neces- 
sary, in the first instance, to thoroughly clear the land 
it is intended to plant. So luxuriant indeed is the vege- 
tation that land which has lain fallow for a few months 
will be thickly covered with weeds not unlike the heather 
and broom of our own country. 
As the fields are generally very uneven a sickle or scythe 
would be almost useless to get rid of the redundant 
growth, but with a hooked stick to draw aside the bush and 
expose the roots a sharp blow from the slightly-curved and 
well-sharpened cutlass will soon clear a large space. When 
stumps of trees, however, and the thicker guava bushes are 
met with, the billhook has to be used. Upon the required 
space being cleared, a single bright day is quite sufficient 
to dry the brushwood, which, should fuel be scarce, is col- 
lected and stacked for burning, but in the event of its 
being plentiful the bush is burned on the field. The subject 
of fuel is a highly important one, and will be presently 
alluded to. The next process is to line out the ground, 
which is done by means of a rope, divided into lengths of 
four feet, at which distance pegs are inserted. When one 
line of pegs, four feet apart, is arranged, another row is put 
in at equi-distant intervals,andthe whole field is thus divided 
into squares. The holing or trenching is now commenced, 
and where practicable, the plough may be brought into 
requisition, but the principle implement employed for this 
‘purpose is the hoe. Many different ways of digging cane 
holes are practised, but the general method is to make 
trenches the whole length of the field about four feet wide, 
and then to proceed to plant. The cane-plant is got by 
cutting the top of the canes, there is an eye at each joint 
from which a shoot may grow, the leaves therefore which 
surround the cane at this point are left to protect the eye 
on the plant being pushed into the ground. To prepare 
the ground for planting the earth is either chopped fine or 
. the plant is simply put into a hole made with a crowbar. 
The plants are usually from six to ten inches long, and are 
left about an inch out of the ground. 
The canes soon begin to grow, as also do weeds, which 
require careful weeding out, and whenever this is done 
mould should be taken from the bank of the trench and 
put round the root of the young plant, which, after the 
