AN ACCOUNT OF THE DIFFERENT ARTICLES OF WEST INDIA PRODUCE, RAISED IN THE ISLAND; THE NUMBER OF SUGAR AND COFFEE PLANTATIONS THEREIN, WITH REMARKS.

The several articles of West India produce raised in Dominica for commerce are, sugar, rum, coffee, cocoa, and indigo.

There are not more than fifty sugar plantations at present in this island, above thirty estates of that description having been abandoned, owing to several causes; and among others, to the imprudence and mismanagement of some of the first proprietors of them; and to the great disadvantages this island laboured under, while it was in the possession of the French last war.

It was a great misfortune, that on the first settlement of this country by the English, so great a rage prevailed in the new settlers for having extensive estates, as many of them were no ways qualified for the laborious task of establishing a valuable property, by clearing the woods, and proceeding, not only to superintend, but to get forward by degrees, with industry and oeconomy.

They flattered themselves, that without all this, in the course of a few years, their fortunes would be made, as they had very large estates; but they did not consider the consequences of borrowing money at eight per cent. which was allowed in Dominica at that time.—The forming new estates with new negroes, instead of seasoned ones, at a time when that climate was, from the quantity of its wood, so unsettled, that it rained best part of the year.—The extra labour of making roads, and carrying materials for building, which took up at least eighteen months, before any produce could be planted.—Whilst in several instances, some of them spent the money, which was intended to forward their plantations, in unnecessary buildings; or in an unwarrantable luxury of living.

Others, from an unpardonable greediness, purchased, in the names of their acquaintances or families, several lots of land, each containing the number of acres limited in the grants; by which means, persons who would have been more fit settlers, were deprived of them; and large quantities of land thus purchased, are now in the same state (in woods) as they were, when first sold at the Commissioners sales nearly thirty years ago.

Another material cause, to which the reduction of sugar plantations in this island may be attributed, is, that several of the first English settlers, from a want of knowledge in the choice of lands, proper for the immediate cultivation of the sugar-cane, had chosen such places in the interior parts of the country, as were on the tops of high mountains, or surrounded by vast woods; which affording too much shelter from the sun, and being subject to too frequent great rains, chilled the canes, rendering their juice unfit for making sugar. Not but that, was the whole of the cultivable lands there to be cleared of their woods, there are few situations, even in the most interior parts, but would be proper for the growth of that article.

By this imprudent conduct of such of the new settlers, after they had spent considerable sums of money, which they had borrowed on the credit of their plantations so situated, and having lost a number of negroes and cattle by the dampness of the climate in those places, together with the difficult and laborious roads to them, they were at length driven to the necessity of abandoning their possessions to the mortgagees in Europe.

These latter, it is presumed, having taken an unfavourable opinion of the mortgaged premises, from having been sufferers already in the loss of considerable sums they had lent on them; and not knowing, or not considering the value of such property at a future period, are unwilling to advance more; at least the majority of the mortgagees seem to be disposed to let their lands remain in the same neglected, abandoned situation they have been in these several years past, to the great hindrance of the prosperity of that valuable island, as well as their own detriment.

It is computed, that on an average, one year with another, there are not more than three thousand hogsheads of sugar made annually in Dominica. This is certainly a very small quantity of that article for such an extensive island, or even for the number of plantations in it, at present under cultivation: for, supposing these fifty estates contained only two thousand acres of land in canes, which is a very small calculation, as several single estates have upwards of one hundred acres, and few less than sixty: this is at the rate only of a hogshead and a half per acre.

In the English old settled islands, three hogsheads of sugar for every acre in canes, on an average, is considered as a very moderate produce; for, after good seasonable weather previous to the crop, some lands have been known to yield from four to five hogsheads per acre. From the great disproportion in point of yielding, between the lands of other islands and those of Dominica, the superior fertility of the former may be inferred; which, however, is by no means the case: for the lands of the old islands, from having been a considerable number of years under cultivation, are so much worn out, as to require great attention to make them bear the culture of the sugar-cane. And the Planters there are obliged to let the land lie a year or two fallow occasionally, or only plant such vegetables as yams and potatoes, the roots of which open and enrich the soil; beside, it must be well dunged previous to planting.

Again, no more than one-half in some plantations, in others only one-third part of the land is yearly planted with canes; the other part being prepared for growing rattoons, turned into pasture for cattle, or given to the negroes for gardens, in order to improve and render it fit for the canes. The rattoons, it is necessary to acquaint the readers, who may probably not know the sugar-cane, are second canes, which spring from the roots of plant canes, after they have been cut down and made sugar of; which the rattoons produce in like manner, but generally not in an equal quantity with the other. Of these, the lands of the old islands will bear but one crop, in Dominica they will rattoon four or five years running, and the last year’s yielding of sugar will be as great as the first.

The sugar estates in the old islands have generally a number of barren spots in them, called “Yellow spots;” the sterility of which no art can overcome so as to make them bear canes to any perfection; for though they will spring up, yet they soon change from a green to a yellow colour, and rot in the ground. And, moreover, the old islands are frequently subject to long and severe droughts, which never happen in Dominica; and there is every reason to suppose they never will, from the great number and heighth of its mountains, together with the vast quantity of woods, which it will be next to impossible ever to clear away in some parts of the island.

The land of Dominica is quite new, very little of it having been more than thirty years under cultivation, and a great part of it, it is probable, never since the creation; the soil thereof produces vegetation so quick, that it is truly amazing; and this vigour is particularly conspicuous in the sugar-cane, for it has been seen there of the length of sixteen feet and upwards, and double the thickness that it in general attain in other islands.

The lands on the sea-coast have abundantly the advantage of the interior country, for forming sugar estates; but then, they are contiguous to, or are overtopped by vast woods, and have not the benefit of an uninterrupted, warm air, which is necessary for the growth of canes to any perfection. Besides, the damps from the woods near them, rising in heavy fogs, has a bad effect on canes; and though the lands on the sea-coast all lie on a declivity, yet the under stratum of the soil being either a stiff clay, or strong terrace, so much water is retained from the frequent rains, occasioned by the woods, as to chill the soil.

These considerations seem to point out the necessity, in order to render Dominica a good sugar country, of clearing the extensive forests of trees in the interior parts of it. When this is done, and not till then, will this island be distinguished for the number of its sugar plantations, and for the quantity of sugar it is absolutely capable of raising.

There are above two hundred coffee plantations in Dominica; but the principal and most productive of them belong to French proprietors, who raise great quantities of coffee, which they dispose of to the English merchants, who export it to Europe. There are, however, several valuable estates of that description belonging to the English inhabitants of it; and the coffee produced in this island is esteemed superior to that of most others in the West Indies.

It is computed, that, one year with another, there are between four and five millions of pounds weight of that article produced, and exported annually from this island to Great Britain, where it sells from 4l. 15s. to 5l. 5s, per hundred weight.

The cultivation of cocoa is not much attended to by the English planters; and the small quantity which is exported, is chiefly raised on the plantations of the French inhabitants.

Indigo is manufactured on only two or three English estates in the island; but they have lately very much neglected that article, owing to too frequent rains, occasioned by the extensive woods.

Cotton trees thrive extremely well in the land on the sea-coasts of Dominica, but the cultivation of them is, at present, wholly neglected; as is also that of ginger. The latter having been formerly planted in estates that are now abandoned, it grows there spontaneously, and in great luxuriance.

The cassia-fistula, and castor-oil nut trees, are both raised on some plantations, but very little of the produce of either is exported. The cassia-fistula was considered by the French as so valuable an article, that soon after they were in possession of Dominica last war, an ordinance of the French King was proclaimed in Roseau, for every-planter in the country to give in an account of the number of cassia-fistula trees he had growing on his estate.

Tobacco grows in great perfection, but it is only cultivated by the negroes, who raise it in their gardens for their own use.

Dominica is, beyond dispute, the most valuable island belonging to Great Britain in that part of the world, for the vast quantities and excellency of the farinaceous fruits and roots of the West Indies; such as plantains, bananas, manioc, or cassada, yams, sweet potatoes, cushcushes, tanias, eddoes, &c. &c. some of which are not to be found in the other islands, but which grow spontaneously in the woods of this. Among these are, the wild yams, which grow there in great abundance, and were the chief food of the runaway negroes for a number of years, till it became necessary to reduce them.

Also Guinea corn, Indian corn, and rice, grow extremely well in Dominica; the latter especially, which being introduced there by the American refugees, flourishes in the moist, flat lands, and yields in great perfection. The large plantations there of plantains and bananas, exceed any thing of the kind in the old islands; the inhabitants of which are often obliged to have recourse to this country for a supply of those fruits.