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
œconomy.
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.