Travels in Brazil

by Henry Koster

PLANTING THE SUGAR-CANE.

The lands in Brazil are never grubbed up[143], either for planting the sugar-cane, or for any other agricultural purposes. The inconveniences of this custom are perceivable more particularly in high lands; because all of these that are of any value are naturally covered with thick woods. The cane is planted among the numerous stumps of trees, by which means much ground is lost, and as the sprouts from these stumps almost immediately spring forth, (such is the rapidity of vegetation,) the cleanings are rendered very laborious. These shoots require to be cut down, sometimes even before the cane has forced its way to the surface of the ground. The labour likewise is great every time a piece of land is to be put under cultivation, for the wood must be cut down afresh; and although it cannot have reached the same size which the original timber had attained, still, as several years are allowed to pass between each period at which the ground is planted, the trees are generally of considerable thickness[144]. The wood is suffered to remain upon the land until the leaves become dry; then it is set on fire, and these are destroyed with the brushwood and the smaller branches of the trees. Heaps are now made of the remaining timber, which is likewise burnt. This process is universally practised in preparing land for the cultivation of any plant. I have often heard the method much censured as being injurious in the main to the soil, though the crop immediately succeeding the operation may be rendered more luxuriant by it. I have observed that the canes which grew upon the spots where the heaps of timber and large branches of trees had been burnt, were of a darker and richer green than those around them, and that they likewise over-topped them. After the plant-canes or those of the first year’s growth are taken from the lands, the field-trash, that is the dried leaves and stems of the canes which remain upon the ground, are set fire to, with the idea that the ratoons, that is the sprouts from the old roots of the canes, spring forth with more luxuriance, and attain a greater size by means of this practice[145]. The ratoons of the first year are called in Brazil socas; those of the second year, resocas; those of the third year, terceiras socas, and so forth. After the roots are left unencumbered by burning the field-trash, the mould is raised round about them; indeed if this was neglected, many of these roots would remain too much exposed to the heat of the sun, and would not continue to vegetate. Some lands will continue to give ratoons for five or even seven years; but an average may be made at one crop of good ratoons fit for grinding, another of inferior ratoons for planting or for making molasses to be used in the still-house, and a third which affords but a trifling profit, in return for the trouble which the cleanings give.[146]

I have above spoken more particularly of high lands; the low and marshy grounds, called in Brazil varzeas, are however those which are the best adapted to the cane, and indeed upon the plantations that do not possess some portion of this description of soil, the crops are very unequal, and sometimes almost entirely fail, according to the greater or less quantity of rain which may chance to fall in the course of the year. The varzeas are usually covered with short and close brushwood, and as these admit, from their rank nature, of frequent cultivation, they soon become easy to work. The soil of these, when it is new, receives the name of pàûl; it trembles under the pressure of the feet, and easily admits of a pointed stick being thrust into it; and though dry to appearance, it requires draining. The maçapé marle is often to be met with in all situations; it is of a greenish white colour, and if at all wet, it sticks very much to the hoe; it becomes soon dry at the surface, but the canes which have been planted upon it seldom fail to revive after rain, even though a want of it should have been much felt. The white marle, barro branco, is less frequently found; it is accounted extremely productive. This clay is used in making bricks and coarse earthen ware, and also for claying the sugar. Red earth is occasionally met with upon the sides of hills near to the coast; but this description of soil belongs properly to the cotton districts. Black mould is common; and likewise a loose and brownish soil, in which a less or greater proportion of sand is intermixed. It is, I believe, generally acknowledged that no land can be too rich for the growth of the sugar cane. One disadvantage, however, attends soil that is low and quite new, which is, that the canes run up to a great height without sufficient thickness, and are thus often lodged before the season for cutting them arrives. I have seen rice planted upon lands of this kind on the first year, to decrease their rankness and render them better adapted to the cane on the succeeding season.[147] Some attempts have been made to plant cane upon the lands which reach down to the edge of the mangroves, and in a few instances pieces of land, heretofore covered by the salt water at the flow of the tide, have been laid dry by means of draining for the same purpose; but the desired success has not attended the plan, for the canes have been found to be unfit for making sugar; the syrup does not coagulate, or at least does not attain that consistence which is requisite, and therefore it can only be used for the distilleries.[148]

The general mode of preparing the land for the cane is by holing it with hoes. The negroes stand in a row, and each man strikes his hoe into the ground immediately before him, and forms a trench of five or six inches in depth; he then falls back, the whole row doing the same, and they continue this operation from one side of the cleared land to the other, or from the top of a hill to the bottom. The earth which is thrown out of the trench remains on the lower side of it. In the British colonies this work is done in a manner nearly similar, but more systematically[149]. The lands in Brazil are not measured, and every thing is done by the eye. The quantity of cane which a piece of land will require for planting is estimated by so many cart loads; and nothing can be more vague than this mode of computation, for the load which a cart can carry depends upon the condition of the oxen, upon the nature of the road, and upon the length of the cane. Such is the awkward make of these vehicles that much nicety is necessary in packing them, and if two canes will about fit into a cart lengthways, much more will be conveyed than if the canes are longer and they double over each other.

The plough is sometimes used in low lands, upon which draining has not been found necessary; but such is the clumsy construction of the machine of which they make use, that six oxen are yoked to it[150]. Upon high lands the stumps of the trees almost preclude the possibility of thus relieving the labourers.

The trenches being prepared, the cuttings are laid longitudinally in the bottom of them, and are covered with the greatest part of the mould which had been taken out of the trench. The shoots begin to rise above the surface of the ground in the course of twelve or fourteen days. The canes undergo three cleanings from the weeds and the sprouts proceeding from the stumps of the trees; and when the land is poor, and produces a greater quantity of the former and contains fewer of the latter, the canes require to be cleaned a fourth time. The cuttings are usually from twelve to eighteen inches in length, but it is judged that the shorter they are, the better. If they are short, and one piece of cane rots, the space which remains vacant is not so large as when the cuttings are long, and they by any accident fail. The canes which are used for planting are generally ratoons, if any exist upon the plantation, but if there are none of these, the inferior plant canes supply their places. It is accounted more economical to make use of the ratoons for this purpose, and many persons say that they are less liable to rot than the plant canes. In the British sugar islands the cuttings for planting “are commonly the tops of the canes which have been ground for sugar[151].” But in Brazil the tops of the canes are all thrown to the cattle, for there is usually a want of grass during the season that the mills are at work[152]. In the British colonies, the canes are at first covered with only a small portion of mould; and yet they are as long in forcing their way to the surface as in Brazil, though in the latter a more considerable quantity of earth is laid upon them. I suppose that the superior fatness of the Brazilian soil accounts for this. Upon rich soils the cuttings are laid at a greater distance, and the trenches are dug farther from each other, than upon those which have undergone more frequent cultivation, or which are known to possess less power from their natural composition. The canes which are planted upon the former throw out great numbers of sprouts, which spread each way; and although when they are young the land may appear to promise but a scanty crop, they soon close, and no opening is to be seen. It is often judged proper to thin the canes, by removing some of the suckers at the time that the last cleaning is given, and some persons recommend that a portion of the dry leaves should also be stripped off at the same period, but on other plantations this is not practised.

The proper season for planting is from the middle of July to the middle of September, upon high lands, and from September to the middle of November in low lands. Occasionally the great moisture of the soil induces the planter to continue his work until the beginning of December, if his people are sufficiently numerous to answer all the necessary purposes. The first of the canes are ready to be cut for the mill in September of the following year, and the crop is finished usually in January or February. In the British sugar islands the canes are planted from August to November and are “ripe for the mill in the beginning of the second year.” Thus this plant in Brazil requires from thirteen to fifteen months to attain its proper state for the mill; and in the Columbian islands it remains standing sixteen or seventeen months.[153]

I did not discover, nor hear it mentioned, that the cane is liable to destruction from the blast, which is spoken of by Mr. Edwards, as doing much injury to the plantations in the British colonies. The cane is subject certainly to several pests, but they are of a nature which may be remedied. The rats destroy great quantities[154], and the fox is no less fond of it; and when he gets among it he makes dreadful havock, for he is only satisfied by cutting down great numbers of canes, taking only a small portion of each. There is also a strange custom among the lower orders of people; they scruple not in passing a field, to cut down and make a bundle of ten or a dozen canes, from which they suck the juice as they go along, or preserve some of them to carry home. The devastation which is committed in this manner is incalculable, in the fields that border upon much frequented paths. It is a custom; and many persons think that the owner has scarcely a right to prevent these attacks upon his property.

The planters of Brazil have not yet arrived at the period (which is not however far distant) of being under the necessity of manuring their lands. I heard of very few instances in which this is the practice. The cane-trash, that is, the rind of the cane from which the juice has been extracted, is thus entirely lost, with the exception of the small part of it which is eaten by the cattle. The manure of cattle is likewise of no use. Lands are not yet of sufficient value to oblige each planter to confine himself to certain pieces of ground for certain purposes, with any sort of regularity. The population of the country is yet too scanty to make every man husband what he possesses, or to oblige him to draw in and give room for others, as, imperceptibly, these others require that he should do so. For the present, the planter finds that it is more convenient to change from one piece of land to another, as each becomes unfit to be cultivated; he allows the wood to grow up again as soon as the ratoons no longer spring forth and yield him a sufficient profit to compensate for the trouble of cleaning them.

The Otaheitan or the Bourbon cane has been brought from Cayenne to Pernambuco, since the Portugueze obtained possession of that settlement. I believe the two species of cane are much alike, and I have not been able to discover which of them it is. Its advantages are so apparent, that after one trial on each estate, it has superseded the small cane which was in general use. The Cayenne cane, as it is called in Pernambuco, is of a much larger size than the common cane; it branches so very greatly, that the labour in planting a piece of land is much decreased, and the returns from it are at the same time much more considerable. It is not planted in trenches, but holes are dug at equal distances from each other, in which the cuttings are laid. This cane bears the dry weather better than the small cane; and when the leaves of the latter begin to turn brown, those of the former still preserve their natural colour. A planter in the Varzea told me that he had obtained four crops from one piece of land in three years, and that the soil in question had been considered by him as nearly worn out, before he planted the Cayenne cane upon it. Its rind is likewise so hard that the fox cannot make any impression upon it. The business of the boiling-houses is in general so slovenly performed, that I could not obtain any exact information respecting the returns in the manufacturing of it; but most persons were of opinion that here too some advantage was to be perceived.