Carrying Sugar Canes

Carrying Sugar Canes
by
Austin Mitchell

When I was going to primary school in the 1960’s, I had to stop for one week to carry sugar canes from the field up to the road for the trucks to take it to the Bybrook Sugar Factory in Bog Walk, St Catherine. I think it was about the end of May or the beginning of June. My father planted cane on our land and he rented adjoining lands to plant more canes. Jay Phipps also planted canes on the Phipps property. They would employ other men to help them in the field. Some would help to cut the canes while others would take it out to the cane heap. Sugar cane farming was popular in those days. Stanley Marshall, Vernal King, Mr. Oliver, Aston Thompson and Mr. Gordon were some of the men I remembered who planted sugar canes. The workers ate a lot of food and sometimes had two or three helpings at lunch time. My mother and grandmother were the cooks on our estate and I'm not boasting, they cooked the best food I've ever had. Not all the workers were agreeable and sometimes there were disputes over pay. Some of the workers were also lazy and tried to disappear after lunchtime. Most of these farmers pulled out of sugar in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Today, many of these sugar lands still lie idle or have been cut up and sold. The End.
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