66 
HISTORY OE THE [book v 
LANDS. 
On a survey of the general run of the sugar 
estates in Jamaica, it is found, that the land in 
canes commonly constitutes one-third of the plan¬ 
tation ; another third is appropriated to pasturage 
and the cultivation of provisions, such as plantains, 
(a hearty and wholesome food), eddoes, yams, po¬ 
tatoes, cassada, corn, and other vegetable esculents 
peculiar to the country and climatej and which, 
with salted fish, supplied the negroes weekly, and 
small stock, as pigs and poultry, of their own rai¬ 
sing, make their chief support, and in general it is 
ample. The remaining third is reserved in native 
woods, for the purpose of furnishing timbers for 
repairing the various buildings, and supplying fire¬ 
wood for the boiling and distilling-houses, in addi¬ 
tion to the cane-trash, and for burning lime and 
bricks.—As therefore a plantation yielding, on an 
average, two hundred hogsheads of sugar annually, 
requires, as I conceive, not less than three hun¬ 
dred acres to be planted in canes, the whole ex¬ 
tent of such a property must be reckoned at nine 
hundred acres. I am persuaded that the sugar 
plantations in Jamaica making those returns, com¬ 
monly exceed, rather than fall short of this esti¬ 
mate ; not, as hath been ignorantly asserted, from 
a fond and avaricious propensity in the proprietors 
to engross more land than is necessary; but be- 
