THE

PRACTICAL SUGAR PLANTER;

A COMPLETE ACCOUNT OF THE

CULTIVATION AND MANUFACTURE

OF THE

SUGAR-CANE,

ACCORDING TO THE

LATEST AND MOST IMPROVED PROCESSES.

DESCRIBING AND COMPARING THE DIFFERENT SYSTEMS PUR-
SUED IN THE EAST AND WEST INDIES AND THE STRAITS
OF MALACCA, AND THE RELATIVE EXPENSES AND
ADVANTAGES ATTENDANT UPON EACH:

BEING THE RESULT OF SIXTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE
AS A SUGAR PLANTER IN THOSE COUNTRIES.

BY LEONARD WRAY, Esq.

With Numerous Illustrations.

LONDON:

SMITH, ELDER AND CO., 65, CORNHILL.

1848.
C

TO

THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

THE EARL OF ELGIN AND KINCARDINE,

GOVERNOR-GENERAL OF CANADA, LATE GOVERNOR OF JAMAICA, ETC.

MY LORD,

As Governor of Jamaica, at a period when despair had begun to pervade the whole planting community of the West India islands, your Lordship laboured to arouse the drooping energies of the planting body, and to restore that confidence which was fast departing. By addressing yourself to the intelligence of the planters themselves, your Lordship well knew that you were engaging the vigorous minds of really practical men in the great work of improvement; that you were leading their intelligence to exercise itself in the investigation of those causes and effects, which science so readily explains; and that, in pursuing such an investigation, they could not fail to discover a new world of valuable information. In competing for the prizes, which your Lordship (with characteristic penetration