The Newberry herald. [volume] (Newberry, S.C.) 1865-1884, 1883-08-09
AUGUST.
TROPICAL FARMING.

Mr.. Alfred Trumble, describes
the farming of the tropics in the
-Amelcan Agricaltarist for August,
from which we clip the following
There is but little dignity about
farming in the tropics. 1t is true,
there are great plantations OF sugar,
and coffee, but the owners of them
areeither companies, formed abroad,
and represented by oyerseers and
officers, or proprietors who are far
too aristocratic to touch hoe ham
die, or harness team. The white
man does not work in the warm
ATTITUDES. The farmer proper OF
the tropics is in the main little bet.
ter than the slave, whose place he
occupies. In the west Indies he is
invariably negro; on the continent
of South or Central America a half.
breed. or rather a hybrid, the result
of a couple of centuries of India,
Spaniard, and negro cross, breeding.
But wherever he is, he is always
wretcbedly ignorant and poor. He
always farms in very small way
and by the most primitive methods.
An acre of ground constitutes a
large farm. He never plows, the
hoe and spade being his only tools.
He raises yams and kindred indi-
genous vegetables, and very good
crops of them, too, for he has fer
tile soil to aid him. He never plants
on poor ground. If he lives near
a running stream. he generally has
numerous trees of the banana and
plantain. Though these grow wild
in the tropics, they are improved by
cultivation. The wild bananas root
close to the waters edge, and a
freshet may carry the plants away.
We have often seen rude canoe
slip by on some South American
stream at early morning, carrying
an old squaw, in scarlet cotton
gown, and cart-wheel hat, with a
roll of tobacco-leaf between his
teeth, and two lunches of bananas
for cargo. These punches are all
she has to sell, and she will travel
twenty miles to dispose OF them.
The old woman is never without a
naked boy and clean dog for COM
pany, and when the tide is fair, the
party float along, carried by the
current, and propelled by the wind
blowing on a big plantain leaf.
which the boy holds upright for
sail.
No more picturesque or wretched
picture can be conceived, than one
of the little farms of South or Gen.
tral America. A hut OF palm boards,
with a rotten roof of palm branches,
swarming with bats, scorpions, and
and other vermin, constitutes the
farmers home. The floor is of
earth, the beds are frameworks of
boards, on which the inmates
stretch without the effete formality
of undressing Hammocks are not
as often seen as one would fancy.
All travellers, however, carry them,
and for dime obtain the privilege
of singing them from the beams.
Many farm houses are mere sheds,
with the sides open to the winds.
The farms themselves present none
of the pleasing aspects of cultivated
ground. Tbe different crops grow
in patches, it is true, but rank, un-
weeded, and without care Nature
provides a soil so rich, that man
needs to give it but ittlc labor;
when, after years, the ground is
worked out, the farmer opens an
other patch, for all is free.
Such land as this would be
paradise for the intelligent and en-
ergetic Northern farmer, but for the
fact that in this enervating and
malarial climate hard labor is dead
". The white man, who settles
here and works as he is accustomed
to labor in the cooler climate at
home, soon dies, and only he who
adapts himself to the listless eli
mate, survives.
JELLEY RoLLs.-Mix thoroughly