Sugar v. Gold. 323 
bounties, scarcity of labourers, borers, rats, crab dogs 
and the gold industry, he is so far satisfied with his 
property that he never dreams of abandonment. Per- 
haps however he may desire to sell, fearing similar diffi- 
culties in the future to those which he hears beset his 
neighbours' Plantations. But I ask why should he be 
dismayed ? Where can he get the same interest on his 
capital, as he can derive from a successfully managed 
sugar estate in Demerara ? The impossible survival of 
the bogus bounty system in Europe, the still further 
reducible cost of production, increased extraction from 
the cane, and new labour saving-machinery in the Fac- 
tory, all tend most clearly and truly to encourage hope 
in the hearts of sugar estates proprietors. 
The greatest blow given to the sugar industry in late 
years in this colony, has been the abandonment of 
Plantation Bel Air, but it must not be forgotten that 
Bel Air is a very exceptional estate. It had a very 
heavy expense in its public road and sea dam. Most 
estates on the East Coast have about one rood of dam 
and road to about five acres of land in cane cultivation, 
then taking the average yield as one and a half tons of 
sugar to the acre, we have seven and a half tons of sugar 
burdened with the expense of keeping up one rood of 
dam and road. The cost of dams and roads varies very 
much, but on no estate has it been so great as at Bel 
Air, and then the length of the roads and dams at Bel Air 
and the amount of public traffic on them is much greater, 
as compared with the cultivated area, than on any other 
estate in the colony. Bel Air has had the advantage of 
an exceptionally good supply of labour and an exceed- 
ingly healthy situation, but in spite of these advantages 
