During My Stay In The Plains Of Guines, In 1804, I Endeavoured To Obtain Some Accurate Information Respecting The Statistics Of The Making Of Cane-Sugar.

A great yngenio producing from 32,000 to 40,000 arrobas of sugar is generally fifty caballerias,* or 650

Hectares in extent, of which the half (less than one-tenth of a square sea league) is allotted to sugar-making properly so called (canaveral) and the other half for alimentary plants and pasturage (potrero). (* The agrarian measure, called caballeria, is eighteen cordels, (each cordel includes twenty-four varas) or 432 square varas; consequently, as 1 vara = 0.835m., according to Rodriguez, a caballeria is 186,624 square varas, or 130,118 square metres, or thirty-two and two-tenths English acres.) The price of land varies, naturally, according to the quality of the soil and the proximity of the ports of the Havannah, Matanzas and Mariel. In a circuit of twenty-five leagues round the Havannah the caballeria may be estimated at two or three thousand piastres. For a produce* of 32,000 arrobas (or 2000 cases of sugar) the yngenio must have at least three hundred negroes. (* There are very few plantations in the whole island of Cuba capable of furnishing 40,000 arrobas; among these few are the yngenio of Rio Blanco, or of the Marquess del Arca, and those belonging to Don Rafael Ofarrel and Dona Felicia Jaurregui. Sugar-houses are thought to be very considerable that yield 2000 cases annually, or 32,000 arrobas (nearly 368,000 kilogrammes.) In the French colonies it is generally computed that the third or fourth part only of the land is allotted for the plantation of food (bananas, ignames and batates); in the Spanish colonies a greater surface is lost in pasturage; this is the natural consequence of the old habits of the haciendas de ganado.) An adult and acclimated slave is worth from four hundred and fifty to five hundred piastres; a bozal negro, adult, not acclimated, three hundred and seventy to four hundred piastres. It is probable that a negro costs annually, in nourishment, clothing and medicine, forty-five to fifty piastres; consequently, with the interest of the capital, and deducting the holidays, more than twenty-two sous per day. The slaves are fed with tasajo (meat dried in the sun) of Buenos Ayres and Caracas; salt-fish (bacalao) when the tasajo is too dear; and vegetables (viandas) such as pumpkins, munatos, batatas, and maize. An arroba of tasajo was worth ten to twelve reals at Guines in 1804; and from fourteen to sixteen in 1825. An yngenio, such as we here suppose (with a produce of 32,000 to 40,000 arrobas), requires, first, three machines with cylinders put in motion by oxen (trapiches) or two water-wheels; second, according to the old Spanish method, which, by a slow fire causes a great consumption of wood, eighteen cauldrons (piezas); according to the first method of reverberation (introduced since the year 1801 by Mr. Bailli of Saint Domingo under the auspices of Don Nicolas Calvo) three clarificadoras, three peilas and two traines de tachos (each train has three piezas), in all twelve fondos. It is commonly asserted that three arrobas of refined sugar yield one barrel of miel, and that the molasses are sufficient for the expenses of the plantation: this is especially the case where they produce brandy in abundance. Thirty-two thousand arrobas of sugar yield 15,000 bariles de miel (at two arrobas) of which five hundred pipas de aguardiente de cana are made, at twenty-five piastres.

In establishing an yngenio capable of furnishing two thousand caxas yearly, a capitalist would draw, according to the old Spanish method, and at the present price of sugar, an interest of six and one-sixth per cent; an interest no way considerable for an establishment not merely agricultural, and of which the expense remains the same, although the produce sometimes diminishes more than a third. It is very rarely that one of those great yngenios can make 32,000 cases of sugar during several successive years. It cannot therefore be matter of surprise that when the price of sugar in the island of Cuba has been very low (four or five piastres the quintal), the cultivation of rice has been preferred to that of the sugar-cane. The profit of the old landowners (haciendados) consists, first, in the circumstance that the expenses of the settlement were much less twenty or thirty years ago, when a caballeria of good land cost only 1200 or 1600 piastres, instead of 2500 to 3000; and the adult negro 300 piastres, instead of 450 to 500; second, in the balance of the very low and the very high prices of sugar. These prices are so different in a period of ten years that the interest of the capital varies from five to fifteen per cent. In the year 1804, for instance, if the capital employed had been only 100,000 piastres, the raw produce, according to the value of sugar and rum, would have amounted to 94,000 piastres. Now, from 1797 to 1800, the price of a case of sugar was sometimes, mean value, forty piastres instead of twenty-four, which I was obliged to suppose in the calculation for the year 1825. When a sugar-house, a great manufacture or a mine is found in the hands of the person who first formed the establishment, the estimate of the rate of interest which the capital employed yields to the proprietor, can be no guide to those who, purchasing afterwards, balance the advantages of different kinds of industry.

In soils that can be watered, or where plants with tuberose roots have preceded the cultivation of the sugar-cane, a caballeria of fertile land yields, instead of 1500 arrobas, 3000 or 4000, making 2660 or 3340 kilogrammes of sugar (blanco and quebrado) per hectare. In fixing on 1500 arrobas and estimating the case of sugar at 24 piastres, according to the price of the Havannah, we find that the hectare produces the value of 870 francs in sugar; and that of 288 francs in wheat, in the supposition of an octuple harvest, and the price of 100 kilogrammes of wheat being 18 francs.

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