Essequibo, Berbice and Demerara all produced a considerable amount of sugar during the Dutch régime. The plantations were on coast and river lands that had been diked and drained. Like all sugar-growing countries, this colony was adversely affected by the abolition of slavery, but owing to the success that attended the introduction of coolies from Hindustan, the labor situation never became so acute as it did in many islands of the West Indies. Traffic in African negro slaves was forbidden in 1808. After 1834 the sugar planters sought free laborers in the neighboring islands and in Madeira. Many people who had been deprived of their means of livelihood by the destruction of the vineyards of Madeira by disease settled in British Guiana. The importation of free negroes from British African possessions was sanctioned by the home government in 1840, and between that year and 1865 a large number of slaves taken by British war ships from Cuban and Brazilian slavers were landed in British Guiana, where they found employment as free laborers. This source of labor supply was cut off by the abolition of slavery in Brazil and other countries. In 1867 the importation of free blacks from British Africa was prohibited and the movement to supply laborers from China came to an end. The Chinese experiment was repeated in 1874 and 1878, but never since. The bringing in of British Indians, however, proved a success ever since the time it was first done in 1838. These laborers are indentured for five years, and five years after the expiration of their contract they have the privilege of being taken back to their homes, without charge. During the five years following their contract term they can obtain work as free hands and they may acquire small parcels of land. In fact many of them have become land owners and have settled permanently in the colony. There are also a considerable number who, after having gone back to India, return to British Guiana of their own volition and at their own expense to work as free laborers.
Most of the sugar plantations are found on the seacoast on lands formerly marshy that have been diked and drained either by sluices or by pumping. The plantations along the river banks, too, are on reclaimed lands that have been drained by sluices. In 1911 there were 160,000 acres of reclaimed land in the colony, and 81,000 acres of it were devoted to sugar cane. The plantations are oblong in shape, one end fronting on the sea or the river, as the case may be. Originally they varied in size from 500 to 1000 acres, but in many instances consolidation has taken place. The dike next to the sea is naturally the strongest and most carefully built, while those at the sides and rear are less substantial. As a rule, there is a broad road that runs through the middle of the plantation, with a navigable canal on either side. These canals contain fresh water, salt water and flood waters being kept out by a gate through which excess fresh water may run off at low tide. Short feeder canals run at right angles, and as they are not connected with the drainage canals they may contain salt water if necessary. In crossing a transportation canal, the waters of drainage canals pass underneath through a siphon. Between these transportation canals are the cane fields, from ten to twenty acres in size, and separated from one another by small drainage ditches. The largest transportation canals are between sixteen and twenty feet wide at the top, between twelve and sixteen feet wide at the bottom and four to five feet deep. The smaller transportation canals are twelve feet wide at the top, nine feet wide at the bottom and four to five feet deep. The large drainage canals are fifteen feet wide and four feet deep, and the irrigation ditches are from two to three feet wide and three feet deep.
Before planting cane in virgin soil the trees are cut down, the ground is cleared of grass and weeds, canals are dug, furrows are made at intervals of from six to seven feet, and then the planting is done. A month later weeds are removed, the young shoots are banked and the ground between the furrows is loosened. When five months old the cane is trashed[77] and weeding is done if necessary. After an interval of three months this operation is repeated, and when the cane is a year old the final trashing is done, the harvesting following two weeks afterward.
When the cane has been cut, the ground is loosened once more, the dry leaves are put in the spaces between the furrows and covered with earth, the young cane shoots come up, and in another year the ratoons are ready for harvesting. Two or three ratoon crops are grown on the same land, but as soon as the yield gets too small the ground is left fallow and planting is done elsewhere. Until recently Bourbon cane was the only variety raised in British Guiana. Of late, however, many kinds of seedling cane have been introduced, and today it is estimated that more than one-half of the crop comes from seedling stock. Fertilizing is done with phosphates, guano, potash, sulphate of ammonia and stable manure.
The cane is brought from the fields to the mills by canal in flat-bottomed boats. The equipment in the factories is good, as a whole; crushing is efficiently done and the juices are boiled to grain in vacuum pans.
In addition to 96-degree centrifugals and second sugars, the celebrated “Demerara crystals” are produced. In making the latter the juice is kept acid throughout the process, from one to five per cent being lost through inversion. Chloride of tin is added in the vacuum pan to heighten the yellow color. The greater part of the molasses goes into the manufacture of rum, and a certain quantity, mixed with ground bagasse, finds a market in England as cattle food.
While on virgin soil the yield of cane runs as high as sixty to seventy tons to the acre, the average is about twenty tons per acre, and the extraction of sugar equals 8½ per cent of the weight of the cane. In late years the number of sugar mills has grown less, owing to the merging of many small plants into a few large ones. In 1908 the area planted in cane was 73,471 acres, and there were forty-two plantations, six of them less than 1000 acres, twenty-five over 1000 acres, six over 2000 acres, four over 3000 acres, and one over 7000 acres in size.
Over half of the sugar exported goes to Canada, the remainder being taken by Great Britain and the United States.
As to the future of British Guiana’s sugar industry, early in 1915 a letter was sent by the government secretary of the colony to the West India committee in London in which it is stated that the possible annual crop on suitable sugar lands eastward of the Pomeroon river is not less than 1,000,000 tons, while, if the large virgin alluvial areas to the east of the Pomeroon river and between there and the Venezuelan boundary were brought under cultivation, the maximum total output might reach 2,500,000 tons per annum. This letter was in reply to a communication addressed by the West India committee to the governors of all of the British sugar-growing possessions for the purpose of securing information regarding the possibilities of development of the industry. Hitherto the United Kingdom has been largely dependent upon foreign countries for its sugar supply, and the movement thus set on foot by the West India committee is to urge upon the home government the importance of drawing the entire sugar requirements of the country from its colonies. This of course would mean the establishment of a preferential tariff.
Exports from British Guiana since 1895, in tons of 2240 pounds: