land, the exquisite cafetals have been
prostrated and dismantled, the groves of shade and fruit trees cut down,
the avenues and foot-paths ploughed up, and the denuded land laid down
to wastes of sugar-cane.

The sugar-cane allows of no shade. Therefore the groves and avenues must
fall. To make its culture profitable, it must be raised in the largest
possible quantities that the extent of land will permit. To attempt the
raising of fruit, or of the ornamental woods, is bad economy for the
sugar planter. Most of the fruits, especially the orange, which is the
chief export, ripen in the midst of the sugar season, and no hands can
be spared to attend to them. The sugar planter often buys the fruits he
needs for daily use and for making preserves, from the neighboring
cafetals. The cane ripens but once a year. Between the time when enough
of it is ripe to justify beginning to work the mill, and the time when
the heat and rains spoil its qualities, all the sugar-making of the year
must be done. In Louisiana, this period does not exceed eight weeks. In
Cuba it is full four months. This gives Cuba a great advantage. Yet
these four months are short enough; and during that time, the
steam-engine plies and the furnace fires burn night and day.

Sugar-making brings with it steam, fire, smoke, and a drive of labor,
and admits of and requires the application of science. Managed with
skill and energy, it is extremely productive. Indifferently managed, it
may be a loss. The sugar estate is not valuable, like the coffee estate,
for what the land will produce, aided by ordinary and quiet manual labor
only. Its value is in the skill, and the character of the labor. The
land is there, and the Negroes are there; but the result is loss or
gain, according to the amount of labor that can be obtained, and the
skill with which the manual labor and the mechanical powers are applied.
It is said that at the present time, in the present state of the market,
a well-managed sugar estate yields from fifteen to twenty-five per cent
on the investment. This is true, I am inclined to think, if by the
investment be meant only the land, the machinery, and the slaves. But
the land is not a large element in the investment. The machinery is
costly, yet its value depends on the science applied to its construction
and operation. The chief item in the investment is the slave labor.
Taking all the slaves together, men, women, and children, the young and
the old,