Sugar cane plantation

“ In the case at bar the thing leased is a sugar plantation, with the buildings, mules, and implements necessary for the cultivation and making of sugar, and the growing crop of sugar-cane. This crop is not sold to the lessee absolutely, with the right to use and consume it as he pleases, but it is leased to him as part of the plantation, and to be replanted on the plantation as seed cane; and he expressly binds himself to do this, as well as, by way of reimbursing the lessor for this cane, to leave a certain amount of growing cane on the plantation at the end of the lease. ”

“ In grain and alfalfa fields they are great pests, and in irrigated country their burrows in ditch banks often cause disastrous breaks.
The big tropical species sometimes exist in such numbers as to render successful agriculture very difficult. Sugar-cane planters in many parts of Mexico and Central America are compelled to wage unremitting war on them to avoid ruin. I know of an instance on a plantation in Vera Cruz in which thousands were killed during a single season without stopping the damage from these pests, which swarmed in from the adjacent area. ”

“ We were all in good spirits, as we trusted that after so many misadventures we should be able to succeed. The Frau and the girls had been busily employed in preparing a fresh supply of provisions, while sago, rice, and maize, and sugar-cane in abundance, had been brought from the plantation. My uncle and I had been out shooting, and had killed a couple of deer, three hogs, and a number of wood-pigeons and other birds. We had thus a good supply of meat. ”

“ Not unfrequently the runaway loses his life in the attempt to escape. Epps' premises were bounded on one side by Carey's, a very extensive sugar plantation. He cultivates annually at least fifteen hundred acres of cane, manufacturing twenty-two or twenty-three hundred hogsheads of sugar ”

“ Their medical attendant visits them regularly, and each plantation has a practitioner, who is engaged by the term for his services. If the growth of sugar-cane, cotton, and corn, be the great end of man’s mission on earth, and if all masters were like Governor Roman, slavery might be defended as a natural and innocuous institution. Sugar and cotton are, assuredly, two great agencies in this latter world. ”

“ As a result of the financial distress of 1895, which caused the home government to pass relief measures, a number of plantation owners were compelled to dispose of a portion of their land to farmers, who grew cane upon it and sold the crop to the sugar factories. It is estimated that today about twenty-five per cent of the cane worked up by the factories is furnished by these small growers, the remainder being raised by the owners of the estates. Grinding begins in January and is finished in May or June. ”

“ The character of the sugar-plantation and the life upon it seems to me very much the same everywhere. The most beautiful features of these plantations are the great avenues, especially of palms; I cannot walk through these guadarajahs without a sentiment of devotion, so beautiful and magnificent are they! The gardens are frequently quite small, and commonly but ill kept. The fields of sugar-cane encroach upon everything else. The life of the ladies is not cheerful and scarcely active at all. ”

“ There is no such handicapping of rural industry now enforced, and sugar and tobacco, which are always sure of a ready market where transportation is to be had, are engaging more and more of the attention of planters. It was found that the best of sugar-cane land, that is, best suited for a sugar plantation, could be had here for from thirty to forty dollars per acre; superior for the purpose to that which is held at one thousand dollars per acre in Louisiana. Though cotton is grown in about half the states of Mexico, the states of Vera Cruz and Durango are the most prolific in this crop. ”

“ The Otaheitian cane is very much valued. A plantation of sugar-cane requires renewal once in about seven years. The canes are about the size of a walking-stick, are cut off near the root, and laid in piles, separated from the tops, and then conveyed in carts to the sugar-mill, where they are unladen. Women are employed to feed the mills, which is done by throwing the canes into a sloping trough, from which they pass between the mill-stones and are ground entirely dry. ”

“ Where the land is furnished by the plantation, the farmer is paid from four to five per cent of the weight of the cane in sugar. He is given a house free of rent and an acre or two of garden land as well. All material, labor or stores supplied to him are debited to him to be accounted for when final settlement is effected.
Planting cane in Cuba is a simple matter. In preparing virgin forest land for seed, no ploughing whatever is done; the trees and shrubs are cut down and allowed to dry, the valuable timber is carried away, and the remainder is burned. ”

“ The European planter confines his operations to sugar cane, and the other products are raised by the native farmer exclusively by his own efforts and on his own account.
The terms under which plantation land is held in Java differ widely from those that govern in other cane-growing countries. Between 1830 and 1879, when the compulsory cultural plan was in effect, the government determined what lands were to be planted in cane. It compelled the natives to cultivate and harvest the crop, but allowed them compensation for their labor and the use of their fields. ”

“ Others attend to the irrigation of the fields. As the cane crop matures, crews of employees move in with mechanical cane harvesters that cut and throw the cane into railroad cars. The cane is then taken over portable tracks laid into the growing fields to Waialua's mainline railroad, which runs throughout the plantation, and from there skilled railroad workers transport the cane to the processing plant. Freshly cut sugar cane is extremely perishable and must be processed within a few days of harvesting or serious spoilage will result. ”

“ The seed cane is planted in these furrows at four- or five-foot intervals. The yield from virgin soil is very heavy and has been known to reach ninety tons to the acre, but the sugar content of such crops is low, whereas the subsequent ratoons with a decreased tonnage of cane per acre give juice of a better quality. A fair average production on a plantation having 4000 acres in cane would be about twenty-four tons to the acre. ”

“ Sugar cane grows well, but enterprise in its production has probably been damped by the failure, through mismanagement, of an English Company, which, in 1864, started a large plantation on about the very worst soil that could have been selected. Tobacco planting proved to be a failure, and a costly experiment to the Government. ”

“ On the sugar-cane plantations, where much irrigation takes place, the negro workmen suffer somewhat from fever and ague, but probably more from the copious libations of new rum, which they assert are rendered necessary by the thirsty nature of the climate. ”

“ By far the most important crop is sugar-cane, the area devoted to which increased from 50,022 acres in 1890 to 108,535 in 1900-01. The rich lands at the mouths of the numerous streams are well adapted to sugar culture. Formerly the plantation system prevailed, the labor being done by Kanakas brought into the country for this work. There has been much objection to the introduction of colored labor, and under Government aid a system is developing which it is thought will dispense with the necessity for such immigration. ”

“ From this time forward continuous irrigation and cultivation, together with proper fertilization, are required until the cane matures.
Planting usually begins in March and continues until September, sometimes later, and the cane ripens one year from the following December.
Growing cane should be watered every seven days, and the amount of water used for this purpose is enormous. For example: a plantation producing thirty-five thousand tons of sugar [16] per annum needs twice as much water per day as the city of San Francisco. ”

“ The plantation lands are level or slightly sloping, so that cultivating machinery may be used to good advantage. Grinding can be carried on without interruption throughout the year, which means economical factory capacity and an even distribution of labor. The cost of labor, too, is reasonable, and great quantities of fertilizers lie close at hand. In short, Peru enjoys many advantages, and if her planters and refiners keep pace with scientific development, she will take a prominent place among the cane-sugar countries of the world. ”

“ At Kandy as well as in the vicinity of Point de Galle, frequent attempts have been made to establish sugar plantations, but the soil or the climate, or both, proved to be unfavorable to the growth of the cane. Natives, here and elsewhere, raise a few hills of it about their cabins, which they chew for its sweetness, when the stalk becomes sufficiently ripe; it is especially the delight of children, under this condition. With the aid of proper fertilizers there would seem to be no good reason why sugar-cane could not be profitably grown in Ceylon. ”

“ After 1890, when the acreage of the cane plantations was being constantly extended, the authorities found themselves obliged to prevent encroachment by the cane growers on the land required to produce the necessities of life for the natives, and also to see to it that the new extensions of cane land should not be allowed to appropriate an undue proportion of the available water to the detriment of both the established plantations and the native agriculture. ”

“ Its vegetation witnesses everywhere to Nature's lavish use of her materials. Each deep gorge or mountain-valley blooms with foliage; the slopes are hung with stately trees, graceful shrubs, and masses of creeping and climbing plants; from crag to crag falls the silver of miniature cascades. Madame Pfeiffer did not fail to visit the sugar-cane plantations, which cover the broad and fertile plains of Pamplimousse. She learned that the sugar-cane is not raised from seed, but that pieces of cane are planted. The first cane requires eighteen months to ripen ”

“ While coffee, cacao, and rubber will no doubt be the earliest important plantations to be developed in the country, other products should not be neglected. Ginger has already been well tested in the Republic—there have been times when it was quite an important article of export; sugar-cane grows well, and from the earliest days plantations of it have yielded something for local consumption—if capital were available, there seems no reason why profitable plantations of cane might not be made ”

“ It is this: the serious injury which our interests must inevitably suffer by the removal of our colored population. Their labor is indispensably necessary and extremely valuable. By whom shall the plantations at the south be cultivated but by them? It is universally conceded that they can resist the intensity of a southern sun, and endure the fatigues attendant on the cultivation of rice, cotton, tobacco and sugar-cane, better than white laborers: at least, their bodies are now inured to this employment. ”

“ Many now are opposed to operating the plantations now owned by the State, but most of these would have the State buy other large farms in a different section, abandoning the growing of sugar-cane.
Practically all of the able-bodied convicts of the prison system have been put to work on the plantations regardless of their former occupations and regardless of their inclination to flee or to foment trouble. ”

“ While the cultivation of the coffee-plant has been followed by such splendid results, the repeated attempts to introduce the sugar-cane have been on the contrary as uniformly failures—so that of the numerous plantations established by Europeans, there are at present no more than five remaining. In all those localities where the temperature seemed adapted to the growth of the sugar-cane, the nature of the soil, and the too great humidity have prevented its thriving. ”

“ They are wont to enter into the houses to annoy and tease people who are abed in their hammocks, not letting them sleep. They assure us that on ranches where sugar-cane is grown, and just as soon as the grinding machine for the cane is set up, they will go and turn it or they will drive on the horse attached to it, to make it trot around. They say these apparitions are of the size of a little Indian boy of four or five, and that they appear naked, with only a little hat on their heads. ”

“ The borders of the Tamissee, with a soil of exceeding richness and fertility, are under Indian cultivation, and supply the market of Tampico with fruit and vegetables. The plantain is in great request there, and plantations for cultivating it are numerous and extensive. Its growth is luxuriant, and its flavor particularly rich and agreeable. Sugar cane grows almost spontaneously, and in such abundance that credulity itself is staggered at the thought. One planting, without further care or labor, is all that it requires of human attention, for fifteen or twenty years. ”

“ The aspect of the sugar plantation is remarkably fine, and an occasional glimpse of the surrounding hills, bathed in the sunlight, imparts a sublimity that at once arrests the attention, the crags rising in close proximity, and appearing much more precipitous and inaccessible than they are in reality. ”