•20 
HISTORY OF THE [book v f 
depend chiefly on what are called ratoon canes.* 
Ratoons are the sprouts or suckers that spring 
from the roots, or stoles of the canes that have 
been previously cut for sugar, and are commonly 
ripe in twelve months.—Canes of the first growth, 
as hath been observed, are called plant-canes. They 
are the immediate produce of the original plants or 
gems placed in the ground, and require from fifteen 
to seventeen months to bring them to maturity. 
The first yearly returns from their roots are called 
first ratoons ; the second year’s growth, second ra¬ 
toons; and so on, according to their age. In most 
parts of the West Indies it is usual to hole and 
plant a certain proportion of the cane land (com¬ 
monly one-third) in annual succession. This, in 
the common mode of holing the ground by the 
hoe, is frequently attended with great and exces¬ 
sive labour to the negroes, which is saved altoge¬ 
ther by the system we are treating of. By the lat¬ 
ter method, the planter, instead of stocking up his 
ratoons, and holing and planting the land anew, 
suffers the stoles to continue in the ground, and 
contents himself, as his cane fields become thin and 
impoverished, by supplying the vacant spaces with 
fresh plants. By these means, and the aid of ma¬ 
nure, the produce of sugar per acre, if not appa¬ 
rently equal to that from the best plant-canes in 
pther soils, gives perhaps, in the long run, full as 
* So called from being rejettons or sprouts, rej'tions, re'ttons , rat¬ 
ions ; or more probabiy from a corrupt pronunciation of the Spanish 
word brotones, which has the same signification. 
