WEST INDIES. 
2 3 
CHAP. I.] 
being cleared of weeds and other incumbrances, is 
divided into several plats of certain dimensions, 
commonly from fifteen to twenty acres each; the 
spaces between each plat or division are left wide 
enough for roads, for the conveniency of carting. 
Each plat is then sub-divided, by means of a line 
and wooden pegs, into small squares of about three 
feet and a half. Sometimes indeed the squares 
are a foot larger; but this circumstance makes but 
little difference. The negroes are then placed in a 
row in the first line, one negro to a square, and di¬ 
rected to dig out with their hoes the several squares, 
commonly to the depth of five or six inches. The 
mould which is dug up being formed into a bank 
at the lower side, the excavation or cane-hole sel¬ 
dom exceeds fifteen inches in width at the bottom, 
and two feet and a half at the top. The negroes 
then fall back to the next line, and proceed as be¬ 
fore. Thus the several squares between each line 
are formed into a trench of much the same dimen¬ 
sions with that which is made by the plough. An 
able negro will dig from sixty to eighty of these 
holes for his day’s work of ten hours; but if the 
land has been previously ploughed and lain fallow, 
the same negro will dig nearly double the number 
in the same time.* 
# As the negroes work at this business very unequally, according' 
to their different degrees of bodily strength, it is sometimes the piac- 
tice to put two negroes to a single square; but if the land has not had 
the previous assistance of the plough, it commonly requires the laboui 
«F fifty or sixty able negroes for twenty days to hole tv/enty acres. 
