N.Nugent: "The expenses of cultivating sugar estates have in no instance, I believe, been found _greater_ than before.

As far as my experience goes, they are certainly less, particularly as regards those properties which were overhanded before, when proprietors were compelled to support more dependents than they required.

In some cases, the present cost is less by _one third_.

I have not time to furnish you with any detailed statements, but the elements of the calculation are simple enough." It is not difficult to account for the diminution in the cost of cultivation.

In the first place, for those estates that bought their provision previous to emancipation, it cost more money to purchase their stores than they now pay out in wages.