The ground is tilled in an indifferent fashion and no fertilizing whatever is done. When virgin soil is planted, the seed is put in at seven-foot intervals, sometimes greater, without any holes or furrows having been made; the cuttings are simply stuck in the ground and partly covered with earth. The cane ripens in fourteen months or more. Ratooning follows until the yield gets so small that replanting is necessary. When this time comes, the old roots are ploughed up and furrows from four to six inches in depth are made about five or six feet apart. The seed cane is planted in these furrows at four- or five-foot intervals. The yield from virgin soil is very heavy and has been known to reach ninety tons to the acre, but the sugar content of such crops is low, whereas the subsequent ratoons with a decreased tonnage of cane per acre give juice of a better quality. A fair average production on a plantation having 4000 acres in cane would be about twenty-four tons to the acre. Naturally this estimate would be affected by the relative proportions of plant cane and ratoons, as well as by the character of the soil. Planting is generally done in June and October, while the harvesting begins in December and continues until April. Manufacturing methods in Santo Domingo admit of much improvement. Single crushing is the method employed for the most part, so that the loss in extraction is considerable. The juices are treated and the suspended impurities allowed to settle at the bottom of the tanks. Filter presses are the exception rather than the rule, and for want of them the sugar in the resultant mud is lost. The clear juices are then concentrated and boiled to grain in vacuum pans. First sugars generally polarize between 95 degrees and 97 degrees, seconds about 86 degrees. The molasses is either made into rum or permitted to run to waste. Notwithstanding the crude character of the factories and machinery, the recovery of sugar is generally good, the average being between 9 per cent and 11 per cent of the weight of the cane, with single crushing. Almost all of the factories are managed by Americans, but, as has been said, the equipment they have to work with is by no means modern, and under the extremely uncertain political conditions that prevail there is scant encouragement for outside capital to come in and improve matters. Just when a change for the better will come is impossible to say. Messrs. Willett & Gray give the yearly figures since 1903 in long tons, as follows: 1903-04 47,000 1904-05 47,000 1905-06 55,000 1906-07 60,000 1907-08 62,235 1908-09 69,483 1909-10 93,003 1910-11 89,979 1911-12 96,046 1912-13 84,661 1913-14 105,778 1914-15 108,267 1915-16 120,000 GUADELOUPE AND MARTINIQUE GUADELOUPE