282 AGRICULTURE. 



houses of a far better stamp, belonging, I believe, to coloured 

 people employed in trades ; long and low wooden buildings 

 with jalousies instead of windows for no glass is needed 

 here; divided into rooms, and smart with paint, which is 

 not as pretty as the native wood. You catch sight as 

 you pass of prints, usually devotional, on the walls, com- 

 fortable furniture, looking-glasses, and sideboards, and other 

 pleasant signs that , civilization of the middle classes is 

 springing up ; and springing, to judge from the number 

 of new houses building everywhere, very rapidly, as befits 

 a colony whose revenue has risen, since 1855, from 72,300/. 

 to 240,000/., beside the local taxation of the wards, some 

 30,000/. or 40,000/. more. 



What will be the future of agriculture in the West Indian 

 colonies I of course dare not guess. The profits of sugar- 

 growing, in spite of all drawbacks, have been of late 

 very great. They will be greater still under the improved 

 methods of manufacture which will be employed now that 

 the sugar duties have been at least rationally reformed by 

 Mr. Lowe. And therefore, for some time to come, capital 

 will naturally flow towards sugar-planting; and great sheets 

 of the forest will be, too probably, ruthlessly and wastefully 

 swept away to make room for canes. And yet one must 

 ask, regretfully, are there no other cultures save that of cane 

 wdiich will yield a fair, even an ample, return, to men of 



