June i, my.] THE "tmnCAL AGHICULTURIST. 



7^S 



LETTERS FBOM JAMAICA.— No XV. 



WEATHER, CROPS AND LABOUR— JAMAICA BOTANICAL DE- 

 PARTMENT : A CORRECTION— JAMAICA " GLEANER " ON 

 LOCAL TAXATION — MORE JAMAICA PROVERBS. 



[This is the missing letter to which we referred 

 a short time ago, but its contents are still of interest. 

 —Ed.] 



Blue Mountain District, Jamaica, 



17th December, 1886. 



Dear Sir,— I am pleased to be able to chronicle 

 an im, rovement in the weather. The rains con- 

 tinued very steadily until about, the JOth November. 

 We have since had some very fine days, but even 

 now it is still unsettled and occasionally showery. 

 The coffee in the upper fields is beginning to re- 

 cover from the effects of the two terrible storms 

 of 27th June and 19th August, and needs " hand- 

 ling"; but the crop will be very short indeed 

 except on coffee at a low elevation, which was 

 sheltered and escaped the violence of the storms. 

 It is, thereiore, a good season for the settlers, as not 

 only have they got a much better crop than has 

 been the case for some years, but the quality also 

 is good, for the ample supply of rain with which 

 we have been favoured has been beneficial, and as, 

 vnoreover, prices are lOs. to 123. per cwt. better 

 than they were last year, our Creole friends have 

 ever/ reason to rejoice, for " every dog has his 

 day," and " Bucbia" must sometimes come off 

 second best. I have yet to learn what beyond a 

 decrease in European stocks has caused the rise 

 in the medium qualities of coffee. It will be a 

 good thing for all coffee planters if it be true that 

 the Brazils will henceforth commence to yield 

 annually lessening crops, because of some disease 

 in the trees and the now gradual emancipation of 

 slaves, which will eventually enhance the price of 

 labour. It is time that John Bull, who paid 

 millions to emancipate the slaves in his own do- 

 minions, should put some check on slave-grown 

 products, and cease to allow sugar and coffee &c., 

 from slave-owning countries to come to England on 

 a par with his own colonies, where all are free, 

 and already overweighted with competing with 

 bounty-t'ed sugar and adulterated coffees, by the 

 imposition of a protective duty, thus guarding 

 the interests of his own colonies and dependencies, 

 without which he would find it very hard to find 

 employment for his superabundant ott'spring; for, 

 (as an old l.i,dy in Ceylon, a Mrs. Malaprop in her 

 small way, once observed to a near relative of mine, 

 alluding to a gentleman much esteemed and 

 respected,) " John" is a very " populous" man. 



Mr. Hart, of the Jamaica Botanical Department, 

 has asked me to make a correction. He writes 

 that in my letter No. I'd, I stated that he had been 

 appointed " Fm-tem" Superintendent of the 

 Cinchona Plantation, which I think most people 

 will have understood to mean that he haa been 

 appointed acting head of the department. But he 

 writes as follows, believing my statement would 

 bear unfavourably upon him unless corrected ;^ 

 " I have held the appointment of Superintendent 

 of the Cinchona Establishment ever since 1881, and 

 was appointed acting head of the whole depart- 

 ment in Ju y last, which was probably what you 

 meant to convey. To friends in a similar position 

 in other parts of the world the statement will be 

 misleading, and they will think I have been 

 assuming a false position for the last dve years, 

 unless your mis-statement is contradicted." Trusting 

 the above will satisfy our friend's amour propre, 

 who has been very deservedly promoted to the 

 charge of the Botanical Gardens, Trinidad, on 

 which piece of good fortuae he is sincerely con- 

 99 



gratulated by all his Jamaica friends, who wish 

 him every success in his new position. 



The local Gleaner newspaper, — under the influence 

 of its new American editor, who, with evident Irish 

 proclivities, like the famous St. Kevin, of Vale-of- 

 Glendaloch renown, was very anxious to have '"a taste 

 of land" the property of King O'Toole, whose gander 

 he had revivified — -has started a theory that Gov- 

 ernment should levy a sufficiently heavy tax on 

 all large land-holders to compel them to 

 cultivate all they do not actually use, and if they 

 will not pay the said tax to compel them to give 

 back all land except they are willing to pay tax on, 

 so that Government may hand it over to the 

 native settlers to be cultivated. In this district 

 such lands are either " ruinate " and exhausted, 

 or too steep and rocky, or too high and exposed 

 for cultivation, so that even were the planters to 

 be forced to give up these lands, it is not likely 

 they (the settlers) would avail themselves of them, 

 though they mis^ht in the pen and sugar-cane par- 

 ishes. The plan proposed is that Government should 

 sell and make over these and other lands to all apply- 

 ing settlers in lots of 50 acres, and make them 

 a loan of £50 on each tenure to enable them to 

 cultivate it, the money, I conclude, being lent on 

 interest, and to be repayable in yearly instalments. 

 In answer to the Gleaner's plea, that most of the 

 people are poor, and cannot get work, or grounds 

 of their own, I would reply that Government have 

 thousands of acres which they cannot sell for even 

 2s or 3s an acre, that there are numbers of old 

 and abandoned properties, whence land can either 

 be purchased or rented at reasonable prices, if the 

 natives would but work, and avail of them. If 

 the Gleaner scheme were successfully carried out, 

 it would drive all sugar and coffee planters, i^eu- 

 keepers and large fruit growers out of the island, 

 simply because they would be unable to obtain 

 labour, unless it were imported at a cost that would 

 not pay them to keep up their properties, and make 

 from them a reasonable income. But would such 

 a scheme be likely to succeed ? Now I do not wish 

 to be understood to class all Creoles, that is 

 African descendants alike, there are exceptions to 

 every rule, and there are doubtless good and true 

 men and women amongst them, honest, even 

 hard-working, who lead virtuous lives, but it would 

 be expecting the leopard to change his spots, that 

 Quashie would rouse himself from his nutural 

 inertness and love of ease to work 50 acres of 

 land, and to repay Government the interest and 

 principal, (they deem their present taxes suffi- 

 ciently onerous.) I believe the majority would 

 soon run through the money, building houses and 

 in other congenial ways ; at most cultivating a 

 few acres as they do at present, just enough to 

 give them food and clothing, only working on the 

 estates sufficiently to enable them to indulge in 

 a few luxuries. In the end Government would 

 probably have to take back most of the land, and 

 what would they do with it ? Would it be worth 

 the borrowed capital they had lent upon it ? If, 

 as in some few oases, there is not labour to he 

 had for all from the estates all over the island, 

 the people can and do rent land, they could 

 cultivate more coffee, more fruit, more coconuts, 

 more cocoa and many minor products, for all 

 which they would find a ready sale at the various 

 shipping ports. If labour were ample but could 

 find no employment, how is it that the sugar and 

 coffee planters were obliged to submit to a heavy 

 export tax in order to enable Government to pro- 

 cure cooly labour, at a very large cost to thfi 

 colony and themselves ? No ; Jamaicans aje not 

 60 eager for work though they know the pla«te;f 



