In another work Labat says, “le terrain nouvellement défriché, étant naturellement gras et humide, et sa situation le rendant encore aqueux, les cannes qu’il produit, sont à la vérité grosses, grandes, pleines de suc; mais ce suc est gras et aqueux; il est par conséquent plus long à cuire, plus difficile à purifier, de sorte qu’il faudra abbatre et mettre au moulin plus de cannes, purifier et cuire plus de jus ou de suc pour faire une barrique de sucre, qu’il n’en faut à la Martinique pour en faire quatre.”—Voyage du Chevalier des Marchais a Cayenne, &c. tom. iii. 204. In the little experience which I had, I was surprised to find an increase or decrease in the quantity of the product of the same number of cart loads of cane from different quarters of the plantation; but my mind was then too much occupied to allow me to look for the cause of this.
At the time that Labat wrote his account of the French portion of the Columbian islands, (from 1693 to 1705) they were in a state which resembled much that of Brazil in the present day; that is, the colonists were forming establishments and clearing lands; agriculture was in a rude state, and as sugar colonies were then, comparatively speaking, new things, improvements were daily striking the thinking men who went out to those places; for it was a subject to which intellect was at that time turned. The system in the Columbian islands has now been much benefited, by the advanced state of the mother countries which possess them; and the communication between the islands belonging to the several powers which rule them, has led them to adopt and to profit by each other’s inventions and ideas. But Brazil has been left to its own resources; no interest has been taken in its concerns from without, nor has any regard been paid to the mental advancement of the people belonging to it, so that it cannot be wondered at that the country should have made very little progress. However the similarity of the state of the French islands in the time of Labat, to that of Brazil at the present day, and his powers of observation, induce me to think that some of his remarks may be useful in the latter country, although they may be out of date in the places of which he wrote. Thus much I say, as a reason for making frequent notes from him.
[148] Labat speaks of seeing canes planted down to the water’s edge at Guadaloupe; he says that he tasted the juice of some of them, and found it to be rather brackish; “d’où il étoit aisé de conclure que le sucre brut qu’on en feroit, pourroit être beau, comme il l’etoit en effet en tout le quartier du grand cul-de-sac, mais qu’il seroit difficile de réussir en sucre blanc, comme il est arrivé.”—Nouveau Voyage, &c. tom. iii. p.71.
[149] Besides the usual mode of holing, Mr. Edwards mentions the following 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.”—History of the West Indies, vol. ii. p. 207.
[150] A plough drawn by two oxen, constructed after a model which was brought from Cayenne, has been introduced in one or two instances.
[151] The passages in this chapter which are marked as being quotations, are taken from Edwards’ History of the West Indies. I mention this, once for all, to save room and trouble.
[152] The author of the Nouveau Voyage &c. tom. iii. p. 218. mentions having covered the claying house belonging to a mill, the property of his Order, with the tops of the sugar cane. I never saw this practised in Brazil, and indeed Labat says, that they were not commonly put to this purpose in the parts of which he writes. He says, that a species of reed was usually employed. In Brazil there is a kind of grass which answers the purpose, and is durable; and this quality, Labat says, that the cane tops possess; however in Brazil the leaves of the coco and of other palms are generally used.
Although it was the general custom to employ the cane tops for planting, Labat objects to them from his own authority, upon the score of these not possessing sufficient strength to yield good canes. The same opinion is general in Pernambuco.
[153] Labat lays great stress upon the ripeness of the canes. “Il faut donc observer avant que de couper les cannes quel est leur degré de perfection et de maturité plutôt que leur âge,” &c.—Nouveau Voyage, &c. tom. iii. p. 353.
But when a plantation has a large crop, it is absolutely impossible to attend so particularly to the ripeness as he inculcates; some of the cane must be ground unripe, and other parts of the field cannot be cut until after the proper time.