A sugar-plantation is doubtless one of the most difficult species of property to manage in a proper manner. The numerous persons employed upon it, their divers avocations, and the continual change of occupation, give to the owner or his manager constant motives for exertion, innumerable opportunities of displaying his activity. A plantation ought to possess within itself all the tradesmen which are required for the proper furtherance of its concerns; a carpenter, a blacksmith, a mason, a potter, and others which it is needless to name in this place. It is a manufactory as well as a farm, and both these united must act in unison with each other, and with the seasons of the year. The mill ought, properly, to commence grinding the cane in September, but few of them begin until the middle of October; for the planting scarcely allows that they should set to work before the latter period. This is the time of merriment and of willing exertion, and for some weeks the negroes are all life and spirit; but the continuance of constant work for the whole of the day and part of the night at last fatigues them, and they become heavy and fall asleep wherever they chance to lay their heads.[155] The mills for grinding the canes are formed of three upright rollers, which are made of solid timber, entirely cased or rather hooped in iron, and the hoops are driven on to the wood before they become quite cool[156]. The improvement of the “circular piece of frame-work called in Jamaica the dumb-returner” has not been introduced. Two men and two women are employed in feeding the mill with cane; a bundle of it is thrust in between the middle roller and one of the side rollers, and being received by one of the women, she passes it to the man who stands-close to her, for the purpose of being by him thrust between the other side roller and that of the centre. This operation is continued five or six times until the juice has been extracted. There appears to be some mismanagement in this part of the work; for in the British colonies a second compression “squeezes them completely dry, and sometimes even reduces them to powder;” and the same occurred in Labat’s time in the French islands. The dumb-returner tends very greatly to prevent accidents, which occasionally occur in Brazil through the carelessness or drowsiness of the slaves. The negroes who thrust the cane in between the rollers have sometimes allowed their hands to go too far, and one or both of them having been caught, in some instances, before assistance could be given, the whole limb and even the body has been crushed to pieces. In the mills belonging to owners who pay attention to the safety of their negroes, and whose wish it is to have every thing in proper order, a bar of iron and a hammer are placed close to the rollers upon the table (_meza_) which supports the cane. The bar is intended to be violently inserted between the rollers in case of accident, so as to open them, and thus set at