A G R I C U L T U R E OF M A U R I T I U S . 133
is'planted in the usual manner, though the fields present one peculiarity.
The surface of the ground, in its original state, was covered with loose rocks
and stones. These have been formed into parallel ridges about three or four
feet apart, and between these the cane is planted. The cultivators are of
opinion that these ridges, instead of being injurious to the cane, are rather
advantageous; they retard the growth of weeds, shade and protect the
young cane from violent winds, and retain moisture which reaches the roots
of the cane.
Before the introduction of guano as a fertilizer, the product was from
2,000 to 2,500 French pounds of sugar to the arpent or French acre; but
the increase since the application of the guano has been so extraordinary as
to be scarcely oredible. In ordinary seasons the product has been from six
to seven thousand pounds, and, under peculiarly favorable circumstances, it
has even reached eight thousand pounds to the acre. Official returns show
a gradual increase in the amount of sugar exported from the year 1812 up
to the present time. Thus, in that year, it was but 969,260 French pounds;
in 1851 it amounted to 137,373,519 pounds, and the estimated crop of this
year (1852) is 140,000,000 pounds. The land would produce cotton and
tobacco, but the entire thoughts of the agriculturists of the island are
direoted to sugar. The proportion of guano used is about one-fourth of a
pound to a cane, and the French arpent or acre is estimated to contain about
two thousand plants.
The general abolition of slavery by the English government caused here,
as it did in the other English slaveholding colonies, much agricultural distress
; but after a time the introduction of laborers, chiefly from the Malabar
coast, under certain prescribed regulations, enabled the planters not only to
dispense with the services of the freed negroes, but to obtain labor on cheapei
termB than before. The free blacks here, as elsewhere, seemed to think
emancipation meant an exemption from all labor; they were consequently
indisposed generally to work at all, even for fair wages, and capriciously left
their labor just when they pleased. The imported laborers, known under
the name of coolies, perform nearly all the agricultural work of the island,
as well as load and unload all the ships. On the sugar estates large communities
of them are to be found. Comfortable houses are provided for
them and their families, and exclusive of house rent and provisions, which
are furnished to them, they receive from two to three dollars a month as
wages. This is cheaper to the planter than slave labor was. The municipal
laws for the protection and government of the coolies are judicious and
sufficiently minute, yet these people pay but little regard to any bargain they
may make with their employers ; they go and come very much as they please,
and are tolerated in the exercise of a much larger liberty than is accorded
to laboring men in either England or the United States. Notwithstanding all
these disadvantages, however, the planter makes large profits from their labor.