The empty canes that form the trash are most commonly utilized as fuel. However, some canes are used for fodder or as thatching. The cane-tops are cut off and replanted in order to cultivate fresh growths. There is another method employed if one wishes to conserve time. It seems that after the original growths have been cut their roots throw up suckers, which mature to become canes. These are known as ratoons. They are much inferior in juice to the planted canes, but require less weeding and spare the negroes the only laborious part of the business of sugar-making, the excavation of holes for planting; however, an acre of ratoons will produce only one hogshead of sugar, while an acre of fresh plants will produce two. But the ratoons save time, effort and expense, and a thoroughgoing planter can cultivate five acres of ratoons in the time it will take him to cultivate one acre of plants. However, nature is not to be outdone and Mr Brown, with some regret, informed me that after four or five crops of ratoons this cyclical process is utterly exhausted and one is obliged to plant fresh cane-tops. That it was possible for one to extract even so much seemed to me one of nature's more generous bargains. Chief among accidents and injuries is burning, usually caused by drunken negroes stepping into the siphons in the boiling-houses. If the fire has not long been kindled the limb can generally be rescued, but sometimes there is little one can do, and the doctor is forced to resort to amputation, after which neither replanting nor ratoon will restore the limb.
With Mr Brown I walked the lush pastures of the estate, from time to time being provided the facility to refresh myself with water. The cisterns in which the water for family-use is kept are very well-calculated to preserve the water cool and fresh for some time. What is used for drinking, and supplies the table, passes through a filtering stone into a lead and marble reservoir, which causes it to become more lucid and pure than any water I have ever seen. The reservoir is placed in a shaded corner to preserve the chill, and the water is presented by a slave. The negro offers the water in a coconut shell ornamented with silver, and attached to the end of a hickory handle. This is to prevent the breath of the swarthy bondsman contaminating the purity of the water. Mr Brown was always generous with explanations of any questions I might ask, and ready to label a tree or shrub whose colour or particular grace might attract my eye. However, when I ventured upon more controversial ground, that one might argue is at the heart of the matter, namely slavery, my guide seemed somewhat reluctant to discuss the institution. It would appear that Mr Brown feels that the ethical and moral questions raised by this mode of profit are matters on which I am not yet qualified to engage. Perhaps he objects to discussing such matters with a woman? It is difficult for me to tell. He did, however, suggest that the proposal to substitute animal for black labour arose from pure ignorance. Mr Brown informed me that on many plantations oxen ploughs and other farming implements had been purchased, but through obstinacy and ignorance the negroes simply broke plough after plough and ruined one beast after another. All such attempts have had to be abandoned, for once broken, the cast-iron ploughs cannot be repaired for lack of artisan skills. As for the livestock, efforts to shelter them from heat and rain have proved worthless. Furthermore, the negroes did not seem to understand that the labouring cattle were not as hardy as they, and could not effectively be driven from sun-up to sun-down. Shortly after their arrival the livestock inevitably began to decline, their blood was converted into urine, and expiration soon followed. This, it would appear, constituted the sum total of Mr Brown's case for the continuation of the institution of slavery. In short, if negroes do not labour, then who will? After all, according to my instructor, white men and animals are unsuited to this form of drudgery.
I have spent the greater part of the last few days in thoughtful consideration of the institution. In this frame of mind I have written yet again to Father informing him that upon my return I would wish to make a small lecture tour. A discourse upon my changing fortunes and adventurous travel upon the Atlantic Ocean, and beyond, upon its further shores. This might be of interest to some of the ladies' associations founded by the wives of these new men of industry, especially if my reflections are supported by my immediate experience. When I left these shores I promised Father that I would endure the tropic heat with an open mind as to the merits of the trade in and employment of slaves, and this I have tried to do. But this tired system is lurching towards an end, a fact which it would be foolish to deny. Overworking of the land, absenteeism on the part of those like Father (who fail to recognize that this business of sugar-planting requires the full attention of those who engage in it), the innate menace of this zone, the loss of trade with the newly independent states in America, the afflictions of war in Europe, and, as I observed under the tutelage of Mr Brown, the sad ineffiency of production, all these ills have contributed to the unpropitious future of the West Indian sugar industry. Soon the English must abandon this seeming paradise. Father has connections enough to aid me in a small lecture tour, and I have also suggested that such a tour might help to defer the expense of his sending me upon this journey. I might even compose a short pamphlet framed as a reply to the lobby who, without any knowledge of life in these climes, would seek to have us believe that slavery is nothing more than an abominable evil.
Such untravelled thinkers do not comprehend the base condition of the negro. Nor do they appreciate the helplessness of the white man in his efforts to preserve some scrap of moral decency in the face of so much provocation and temptation. We all hope to welcome the day when liberty shall rule over an ample domain, but at present the white man's unfitness for long toil under the rays of a vertical sun would appear to go some way to justify his colonial employment of negro slaves, whose bodies are better suited to labour in tropical heat. To speak with sentiment merely of the sale and purchase of such people without full consideration of the universal economic facts is plain foolishness. This being the case, I have also informed Father that I shall continue to reside on this plantation for a further three months, during which time I shall have completed the notes for both my pamphlet and my lecture tour. I advised Mr Brown of my decision, to which he merely nodded as though the news were of no consequence to him. After all, I do not believe for one minute that he is under any illusion as to where my loyalties lie: in other words, that is, with my father, his employer and his master. What else could he display but resignation? He was, of course, obliged to remain silent with regard to any fears he might harbour that my writings might comment adversely upon his conduct.
Late last night, having no doubt been informed by Stella of my extended residence, the negroes took it into their heads to pay me a compliment of an extremely inconvenient nature. In order to display their pleasure at my continued sojourn among them, they thought it proper to treat me to a nocturnal serenade. Accordingly, a large body of well-dressed negroes arrived under my window about midnight, accompanied by drums, rattles, and a full orchestra of such unlikely instruments. Thereafter, there appeared to me a congregation of black limbs tumbling and leaping and seemingly determined to pass the whole night singing and dancing beneath my balcony. From their lungs bellowed forth stentorian snatches of Bacchanalian songs, and their unseemly laughter disturbed the still night air. Their fiddlers, cognizant of neither sharps nor flats, embraced with enthusiasm their old friend discord, while those who danced were unable to prolong their individual exertions above a minute or two; nevertheless, this sufficed to distil an abundance of perspiration. Such a vulgar, yet dextrous, set of antics never came into the brain, or out of the limbs, of anything but a son of Ham enjoying his jubilee. After an hour of this Dionysiac abomination, I instructed Stella to inform them that I had long since retired and that they should withdraw promptly to their village. This she did, and then presented herself once more, whereupon she began to address me, her countenance displaying a degree of concern which approached severity.