228 



old, and did it not almost constantly die before, would come to 

 perfection in fifteen years' growth and last till thirty, thereby be- 

 coming the most profitable tree in the world, there having been 

 above £200 sterling made in one year of an acre of it. But the 

 old trees planted by the Spaniards being gone by age, and few 

 new thriving, as the Spanish negroes foretold, little or none now is 

 produced worthy the care and pains in planting and expecting it. 

 The slaves gave a superstitious reason for its not thriving, many 

 religious rites being performed at its planting by the Spaniards, 

 which their slaves were not permitted to see. But it is probable, 

 that wary nation, as they removed the art of making cochineal and 

 curing venelloes into their inland province, which were the com- 

 modities of those islands in the Indians' time, and forbad the 

 opening of any mines in them, for fear some maritime nation may 

 thereby invited to the conquering them, so they might likewise, 

 in their transplanting cocoa from the Caracas and Guatemala, 

 conceal wilfully some secret in its planting from their slaves lest 

 it might teach them to set up for themselves, by being able to 

 produce a commodity of such excellent use for the support of 

 man's life, with which alone and water some persons have been 

 necessitated to live ten weeks together, without the least diminu- 

 tion of either health and strength." 



NOTE BY DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC GARDENS AND PLANTATIONS. 



There is no proof that the original cocoa cultivation in Jamaica 

 was destroyed by "Fiddler" larvae, in fact the destruction is at- 

 tributed by the historian Long to a "blast" which probably was a 

 hurricane. 



Several orange plantations in Manchester and other parishes 

 have been examined by myself and others. In some cases we 

 found evidences of " Fiddler," but elsewhere there was no trace 

 of any injury by larvae at the roots, and the causes of ill health 

 and death were want of aeration and drainage of soil, deep plant- 

 ing, poverty of soil in lime or some other ingredient, shading by 

 bananas or stiff clayey soil. Where there was evidence of the 

 larvae at work on the roots, it could not be said that this was the 

 sole cause, for one at least of what seemed to be the true causes 

 of ill health, was also acting. 



Of the thousands, one might say millions, of orange seeds that 

 are scattered by natural causes in pastures, a very small number 

 meet with favourable conditions and are strong enough consti- 

 tutionally to fight successfully against all enemies. Budded fruit 

 planted alongside succumb, because they do not meet with fa- 

 vourable conditions unless elementary principles of agricultural 

 hygiene are attended to, and also, because possibly the stock 

 plants are wanting in vigour. 



The Fiddler should of course be destroyed, but it would be a 

 fatal mistake to devote sole attention to it, and leave unsolved the 

 other recommendations made by Mr. Cradwick. 



