chap, i.] WEST INDIES. 31 
the plants are put into the ground. It may be 
doubted, however, whether ashes applied in this 
manner, are of much advantage : I have been told 
that if the land is open five years afterwards, they 
will be found undissolved.* At other times, wain 
loads of the compost, or dunghill before-mentioned, 
are carried out and used in nearly the same manner 
as the ashes. . 
But the chief dependence of the Jamaica planter 
in manuring his lands, is on the moveable pens, or 
occasional inclosures before described; not so much 
for the quantity of dung collected by means of 
those inclosures, as for the advantage of the urine 
from the cattle, (the best of all manures), and the 
labour which is saved by this system. I believe :* 
indeed, there are a great many overseers who give 
their land no aid of any kind, other than that of 
shifting the cattle from one pen to another, on the 
spot intended for planting, during three or four 
months before it is ploughed or holed.f 
* On wetlands, not easily trenched, ashes maybe useful, in absorb¬ 
ing superfluous moisture, and may therefore sometimes prove a good 
top dressing. 
•f This, however, is by no means sufficient on plantations that 
have been much worn and exhausted by cultivation, and perhaps, there 
is no branch in the planting business, wherein attention and systematic 
arrangement, as saving both time and labour, are more necessary, than 
in collecting and preparing large quantities of dung from the sources 
and materials before described. In spreading the manure thus col¬ 
lected, the common allowance in the Windward Islands, (where this 
part of husbandry is best understood) is a square foot of dung to each 
