and render them better adapted to the cane on the
succeeding season. 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.

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 West India colonies this work is done in a manner nearly
similar, but more systematically. The lands in Brazil are not
measured, and everything is done by the eye. The quantity of cane
which a piece 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. A
plough drawn by two oxen, constructed after a model which was brought
from Cayenne, has been introduced in one or two instances. Upon high
lands the stumps of the trees almost preclude the possibility of thus
relieving the laborers. 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