, 1893-05-20

OF SIX or eight weeks dlsposes or the canes
which used to linger over four or five
months.
Secondly, thera 10 not such a mania as
there used to be for big crops; we now think
more of the clearances and less of the size
Of he crops. Twenty years ago very few
planters kept a record of the money spent on
each individual field, and many & field was
worked up year after year which helped up
the quantity of sugar made, but brought
down the cleaIances.
Of course we all know tina land which it
would pay to work when sugar was selling at
% shillings per C vt. would be ruinous with
sugar at Is shillings.
Again / think that much more attention
Is paid to the internal drainage of the cultiva-
ton, and this affects the quality Of the juice
as much as it does the quantity. An old and
experienced planter under whom / worked as
an overseer used often to say that drilling
ought to be charged to the buildings" and
there is so me truth in the remark.
Another thing that has greatly helped the
cultlvator is the enormous reduction III the
price of fertilizers, especially in that of the
best of all fertilizers--sulphate Of ammo
MIA.
There are three agricultural improvements
which have not yet been satisfactorily car
ried out, but all planters are so alive to their
Importance that | think it will not be very
long before the attendant difficulties are sa-
tisfactorily solved.
These are Cutting can es on Mondays, ir-
rigation and implemental agriculture.
1t seems a very strange thing that 1T ls so
very dificult to induce a Guianese agricultu-
raj laborer to do the fair days work on a
Monday. No difficulty is found in manning
~, 6 otorvy n -, apnnloUiom trodacnnpp hut IL
is almost impossible to get the field laboler
to work on Monday as we'll as he will will
liugly do on Thursday or Friday. The negro
leborer or as he is generally called, the "task
gang laborer, has also the greatest objection
to taking up less than a full weeks work.
The consequence is as we'll known, that the
field of canes to be cut is only marked" on
a Monday; or at the very most, the dam beds
cut. The canes cut subsequently are carried
out and piled on these few which were cut on
the Monday. which, consequently, do not
find their way to the factory till the Monday
or Tuesday of the following week.
AS the cane cutters have to leave their
work early on Saturday, so as to be present
and receive their money at the estates pay
table they cut very little on that day. The
result is that the parapets Of the field are
loaded on Friday nights with canes enough
for at least two days grinding. Apart from
the risk Of accident, it is obviously
unadvisable to have so many canes on
hand They begin to deter:orate as soon
as they are cut, and the rise Of the per-
oentage of glucose in the juice every Monday
and Tuesday morning constantly calls the
attention of the planter to the wastefulness
of the present system.
Mr.. Chilean claims to have put a stop to
this habitual Monday idling by cutting his
canes by contract; if so the steady supply of
cones and avoidance Of any accumulation at
the end Of the week, are some Of the argu-
ments in favor of his system,
The last two years have been so excessive
ly wet, that the question Of irrigation has
almost been lost sight of, but wet years are
not likely to recur forever and as soon as ever
there is az drought the question of water
conservency and irrigation will again come
to the fore.
These two questions are really only one, for
it is is plainly impossible to irrigate without
water, and partial irrigation is as bad as, or
worse than, none at all. / mean partial as
regards time. Our present supply Is apt to
run short Just when it is most wanted-as
Scott says, 'like a summer dried fountain
when our need is the %sorest." AS soon as
water fails, those fields that have been artl-
fcially watered suffer more than those that