Herein is a
prospective Utopia, and people are always dreaming of the sugar-
growing capacities of the belt of rich disintegrated lava which
slopes upwards from the sea to the bases of the mountains.
Hitherto, sugar growing has been a very disastrous speculation, and
few of the planters at present do more than keep their heads above
water.
Were labour plentiful and the duties removed, fortunes might be
made; for the soil yields on an average about three times as much as
that of the State of Louisiana. Two and a half tons to the acre is
a common yield, five tons, a frequent one, and instances are known
of the slowly matured cane of a high altitude yielding as much as
seven tons! The magnificent climate makes it a very easy crop to
grow. There is no brief harvest time with its rush, hurry, and
frantic demand for labour, nor frost to render necessary the hasty
cutting of an immature crop. The same number of hands is kept on
all the year round. The planters can plant pretty much when they
please, or not plant at all, for two or three years, the only
difference in the latter case being that the rattoons which spring
up after the cutting of the former crop are smaller in bulk. They
can cut when they please, whether the cane be tasselled or not, and
they can plant, cut, and grind at one time!
It is a beautiful crop in any stage of growth, especially in the
tasselled stage.
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