[To face p. 184.]

A mill worked by cattle was considered satisfactory if it passed sufficient canes in an hour to yield from 300 to 350 gallons of juice. As the cane-juice ferments so easily, canes must be ground as soon as they are cut, and great care requires to be exercised in throwing aside those which are tainted.

Bryan Edwards sketches the expenses and profits of a sugar estate in the years 1781 to 1791, and I think it will be interesting to unearth it out of his capacious history, which I confess without reserve to be my happy hunting-ground for reliable information concerning Jamaica’s eventful past.

He divides the necessary outlay under three heads those of (1) Lands; (2) Building; (3) Stock.

(1.) Lands.
To buy 600 acres of land £8,400 0 0
Clearing 300 and planting it at £12 per acre 3,600 0 0
Enclosing and fencing altogether 700 0 0
Clearing and planting 100 acres with provisions 700 0 0
Clearing and planting 100 acres with guiney-grass 700 0 0
Total (in Jamaica currency) £14,100 0 0

(2.) Buildings.
Water or cattle mills, boiling-house and fittings, curing-house and fittings, overseer’s house, trash houses, hospital, prison for negroes, mule stables, shops, sheds, utensils (Jamaica currency) £7,000 0 0

(3.) Stock.
260 negroes, 80 steers, 60 mules £20,380 0 0
Lands£14,10000
Buildings7,00000
Stock20,38000
Total (Jamaica currency)£41,48000
(English sterling)£30,00000

The produce of such a plantation at the London markets, 1781-1791, he reckons thus:—

Sterling.
200 hogsheads of sugar £3,000 0 0
130 puncheons of rum 1,300 0 0
Gross returns £4,300 0 0

The net returns, after sundry necessary disbursements, he gives as 7 per cent. on a capital of £30,000.

I was enabled to go over a rum factory, perhaps one of the best known in the island: Appleton rum finds its best market in Jamaica, and is not exported at all. In this case the rum is made from the whole of the cane instead of from the molasses or skimmings of the boiling fluid.