A worm, which pierces the cane near the ground and eats out the pith, has of late, I am told, done some damage, and in some parts the rat has proved troublesome.

But these evils do not anywhere endanger or ruin the crop, as the blight has ruined the coffee culture and discouraged other agricultural ventures.

The sugar product of the islands has constantly increased.

In 1860 they exported 1,444,271 pounds of sugar; in 1864, 10,414,441 pounds; in 1868, 18,312,926 pounds; and in 1871, 21,760,773 pounds of sugar.
What is remarkable is that, with this rapid increase in the production of sugar, you hear that the business is unprosperous; and if to this you reply that planters, like farmers, are hard to satisfy, they show you that the greater number of the plantations have at some time been sold by the sheriff, some of them more than once, and that, in fact, only six or seven are to-day in the hands of their founders.
I do not doubt that there has been bad management on many plantations, and that this accounts in part for these failures, by which many hundred thousand dollars have been lost.

For the advantages of the sugar planter on these islands are very decided.