DESCRIPTION OF ROSE HALL—SUGAR—THE EXPENSE OF WORKING AN ESTATE A CENTURY
AGO—BANANA CULTIVATION
The mountains round Montego Bay were the scene of a long and unrelenting
struggle between the forces of the government and the Maroons. After a
prolonged struggle blood-hounds from Cuba were imported to hunt them
down. Many ghastly scenes took place in the recesses and defiles amongst
the hills.
I had myself a curious experience in the old West Indian-built house of
Miss Harrison, which I give for as much as it is worth; the psychologist
might be able to interpret it with satisfaction to himself. I was going
up to bed on Sunday evening, and I have mentioned before how handsomely
the house was internally fitted up with mahogany stairs, flooring and
doors, when I distinctly heard the sound of a crack of a whip immediately
in my vicinity. I instinctively turned round to see who was coming
up behind me, expecting to see a man with a riding-whip in his hand.
Needless to say, there was nobody; it was a moonlight night, and the dim
glimmer of a paraffin lamp shone across the landing from some half-open
door. I had not been thinking or talking of the history of Jamaican
families in years past. Instead, I remember feeling irritated at the
fulsome boasting of some of the Americans I had just left.
My hostess was anxious that I should drive out to Rose Hall, the home of
the Palmers, whose monument I have described. I think a visit to this
house, notwithstanding its dilapidated and ruinous state, is useful, in
that one can gain an idea of the wealth and luxuriant mode of living of
the estate owners in times when sugar fetched any price between £50 and
£70 a ton, instead of its present price, which is about £5. These were
the days when fine roads were built, handsome houses such as Rose Hall
were erected, and lands brought into cultivation. An almost unbroken
girdle of sugar-fields encircled the island. When, however, philanthropic
effort, headed by Wilberforce, successfully passed the Emancipation Act,
which provided that from and after the 1st of August 1834, all slaves
in the colonial possessions of Great Britain should be for ever free,
with an intermediate state of four and six years, the condition of
the sugar-planters was lamentable. They were left with old machinery,
scarcity of labour, and poor markets. Indignation was rife, and they
threatened to transfer their allegiance to the United States of America.
The immediate results of emancipating negroes from slavery has been
practically the same everywhere. After the adoption of free trade many of
the estates were simply abandoned, or sold for next to nothing. Probably
those who could have foreseen how the fruit trade would eventually
supersede sugar, would have clung to their lands at all costs.
To give my readers some idea of the interior of a planter’s house in the
eighteenth century, I quote from a journal of the Institute of Jamaica a
description of the Palmer mansion built for £30,000 in 1760, and richly
furnished: “A gap through the boundary wall leads to an avenue of trees,
selected for their beauty and fragrance from the endless variety which
luxuriates in a southern clime. There may still be seen the cocoa, with
its fringy leaves always graceful and always beautiful; the quaint
cotton, the king of the forest, from whose huge limbs countless streamers
of parasitical plants hang pendent exposed to the breeze; the palm, with
its slender speckle of most delicate green; the spreading mahogany,
with its small leaves of the deepest dye; and there may be found the
ever-bearing orange, with its golden fruit and flowers of rich perfume.
Neglect, too, has been here, and the avenue once so trim and neat is now
overgrown with weeds and bushes, so much so that the remainder of the
ancient wall can scarce now be seen.
“Passing about a half mile through the grove you come suddenly in front
of a stately large stone mansion, prettily situated on the top of a
gentle slope. The first thing that strikes you is its size and magnitude,
the next, the imposing appearance of the flight of steps leading to the
main entrance of the mansion. These are 14 feet high, built of large
square stone (hewn), and so arranged that the landing-place serves as
a portico 20 feet square. A few brass stanchions, curiously wrought and
twisted, serve to show what the railing had been, but the few remaining
are tarnished with verdigris and broken, bruised and turned in every
direction. Magnificent, massive folding-doors of solid mahogany, 4
inches thick, with panels formed by the carver’s chisel in many a scroll
and many a device, are upheld by brazen hinges which, fashioned like
sea-monsters, seem to bite the posts on which they hang. These doors are
in front of the main hall, a room of lofty dimensions and magnificent
proportions, 40 feet long, 30 wide, 18 feet high, formed of the same
costly materials as the doors, carved in the same manner out of solid
planks and fashioned in curious and antique forms, while the top is
ornamented with a very deep cornice formed after the arabesque pattern.
The floor is of the same highly polished wood. Three portraits in richly
carved frames and painted by a master-hand immediately attract attention.
One of these portraits represents a hard and stern-featured man clothed
in the scarlet and ermine robes of a judge. Another is of a mild,
benevolent-looking, gentlemanly person, dressed in the fashion of the
olden times with powdered hair, lace cravat, ruffles and silk stockings,
buckles, brocaded vest and velvet coat. The third is a female of about
six-and-twenty, and, if the painter has not flattered her, she must have
been of exquisite beauty.”
Sugar is talked, and has been talked _ad nauseam_ in Jamaica. In one of
the leading organs of the Jamaican press I read, in this first week of
March 1903, that according to the latest reports from New York the sugar
industry is looking up, an appreciable rise in the price of crystals is
announced, and this, it is believed, will cause a certain increase in the
price of the lower grades of sugar as well. One rejoices to hear that
the refiners of sugar in America are beginning to be nervous, lest, in
consequence of the coming abolition of the Continental bounty-fed system,
the British West Indian sugar should find its way to the markets of the
mother-country. There is a special cane called the Muscovados which to
the American refineries is indispensable, and which apparently comes in
greater bulk from our colonies. In addition, the Brazil crops are not
so plentiful as they have been. This being so, there seem to be ample
grounds for the hope entertained that the prospects of the sugar industry
of this part of the Empire are heightening considerably. Alluding to
their hope that in the future there is promise of higher prices generally
for cane-sugars, and also to the development and increased outputs of the
fruit trade, the writer concludes a most encouraging article with the
belief that, all things taken into consideration, Jamaica may be said to
be on the eve of a great agricultural and industrial boom.
Now the cultivation of sugar on a large scale implies the circulation of
huge sums of money. But those who confidently talk about its revival, and
who think that as soon as the bounties are abolished the country will
leap back into its former prosperity, forget a very important item on the
programme. Certain soils only produce sugar profitably. The area most
suitable for the cultivation of cane as a staple article of commerce is
a limited one. Westmoreland, Trelawny, and St Thomas, are the parishes
where sugar pays for growing because of their proximity to ports. In
these days of keen competition, every mile of carriage means so much out
of the profits.
I find from a statement supplied by the Merchants’ Exchange that the
total export of sugar from 1st April 1902 to 10th January 1903 was 13,468
tons, against 11,523 exported during the same period in the preceding
year.
The beautiful and verdant green of the waving cane-fields is one of the
most beautiful and characteristic sights of the island; the cane grows
from 4 to 7 feet high, occasionally it attains a height of 12 feet. The
old mills were worked either by water, wind, or cattle. The machinery
used for squeezing the juice out of the sugar-cane consisted of three
upright iron-plated rollers, or cylinders, 30 to 40 feet in height. The
middle one, to which the moving power was applied, turned the other two
by means of cogs. Between these rollers the canes previously cut short
were twice compressed. Having passed through the first and second rollers
they were turned round the middle one by a circular piece of framework,
or screen, called the dumb returner, forced back through the second and
third, which squeezed them perfectly dry. The cane-juice was received
into a leaden bed, and then conveyed into a vessel called the receiver;
the refuse cane-trash was used for fuel to boil the liquor. The juice
ordinarily contains eight pints of water, one pint of sugar, one pint of
oil and mucilaginous gum, with a portion of essential oil.
[Illustration: OLD-FASHIONED SUGAR MILL.
_To face p. 184._]
A mill worked by cattle was considered satisfactory if it passed
sufficient canes in an hour to yield from 300 to 350 gallons of juice. As
the cane-juice ferments so easily, canes must be ground as soon as they
are cut, and great care requires to be exercised in throwing aside those
which are tainted.
Bryan Edwards sketches the expenses and profits of a sugar estate in the
years 1781 to 1791, and I think it will be interesting to unearth it out
of his capacious history, which I confess without reserve to be my happy
hunting-ground for reliable information concerning Jamaica’s eventful
past.
He divides the necessary outlay under three heads those of (1) Lands; (2)
Building; (3) Stock.
(1.) LANDS.
To buy 600 acres of land £8,400 0 0
Clearing 300 and planting it at £12 per acre 3,600 0 0
Enclosing and fencing altogether 700 0 0
Clearing and planting 100 acres with provisions 700 0 0
Clearing and planting 100 acres with guiney-grass 700 0 0
-----------
TOTAL (in Jamaica currency) £14,100 0 0
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(2.) BUILDINGS.
Water or cattle mills, boiling-house and fittings,
curing-house and fittings, overseer’s house,
trash houses, hospital, prison for negroes,
mule stables, shops, sheds, utensils
(Jamaica currency) £7,000 0 0
==========
(3.) STOCK.
260 negroes, 80 steers, 60 mules £20,380 0 0
===========
Lands £14,100 0 0
Buildings 7,000 0 0
Stock 20,380 0 0
-----------
TOTAL (Jamaica currency) £41,480 0 0
(English sterling) £30,000 0 0
===========
The produce of such a plantation at the London markets, 1781-1791, he
reckons thus:—
Sterling.
200 hogsheads of sugar £3,000 0 0
130 puncheons of rum 1,300 0 0
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Gross returns £4,300 0 0
==========
The net returns, after sundry necessary disbursements, he gives as 7 per
cent. on a capital of £30,000.
I was enabled to go over a rum factory, perhaps one of the best known in
the island: Appleton rum finds its best market in Jamaica, and is not
exported at all. In this case the rum is made from the whole of the cane
instead of from the molasses or skimmings of the boiling fluid.
Some of the tourists whom I met had driven from the quaint little town
of Falmouth to Montego Bay, a distance of 24 miles along the coast. They
were charmed with the beautiful views, especially the grand sunset as
they approached Montego Bay; and I do not think I have ever seen more
lovely colouring anywhere than here where the exquisitely soft tints seem
to melt into each other. The Government is waking up seriously to the
fact that the harbour of Falmouth should be improved, and the people of
Trelawny have voiced their grievances to some tune since £12,000 are to
be spent in deepening the channel.
The Hon. L. C. Shirley, at the last meeting of the Parochial Board,
very emphatically urged the need of shipping facilities. He had seen in
the days of sugar prosperity five or six barques in the harbour at one
time, but, said he, “Sugar and rum being at their lowest ebb, something
else must be done. Bananas meant money, but if we have no facilities for
shipping what would be the good of planting?”
One of the best authorities in the island on agricultural possibilities
and prospects informed me, not long since, that there were old sugar
estates to be bought in the neighbourhood of Falmouth for a mere song,
which, if purchased now that there is the certainty of improving the
harbour, would in a year or so return 100 per cent. if turned into banana
plantations. I rather wished I were a man with a capital of £2,000, but
when I asked if banana-growing required much experience—
“Yes,” said he, “A young fellow should get on a banana estate for a year
at least, before laying out his capital.”
“It is a matter of learning which soil is particularly adapted,” I
suggested.
“Not only that,” he rejoined, “but an inexperienced man has no idea
how to manage his labourers, and there are always sharks ready to take
advantage of his ignorance.”
Which latter I knew to be sapient wisdom, from the unhappy experience
of a youthful relative whose gullibility was apparent to an antipodean
swindler, with the result that the sorrow-stricken youth learnt wisdom at
the expense of a lightened purse.
There is nothing chimerical in the success of the banana trade. America
statistically absorbs most of this produce. On all sides we hear of the
variety of ways it is useful as an article of diet, whilst its nutritive
powers are unquestioned.
America largely buys banana flour. In its unripe stages it is more
properly a vegetable. Green bananas mashed and eaten like potatoes form
most useful food, whilst ripe bananas, dried and put up in boxes like
figs, are both wholesome and satisfying. From the 1st of April 1902 to
10th January 1903, 90,204,597 bunches of bananas were exported from
Jamaica.
In the lowlands, where the climate is hot and moist, bananas are at their
best. In preparing ground to grow them the land is ploughed with eight or
ten oxen, and the plants are put in from 10 to 15 feet apart. The height
they attain is a matter of soil and cultivation. At the end of the first
year a crop is ready to be gathered. Each plant produces one bunch only.
The plants send out suckers from their roots, which are allowed to grow.
Thus, when the first plant is cut down as worthless, another is ready to
bear; others are in different stages of growth. This goes on for about
seven years, when it is needful to plough again and replant the ground in
some places, but I have been told of the same banana-trees remaining in
bearing thirty and forty years. As the price fluctuates, it has not the
element of certainty that coffee has.