336 PLANTING ENTEBPRISE^N THE WEST INDIES. [Mabch. 



and cardamoms, black pepper and vanilla, ginger and arrowroot, 

 jalap and sarsaparilla, fibres and oils, india-rubber and tobacco, dye 

 woods and cocoa-nuts, as well as the finest and most luscious 

 tropical fruits, we should devote proportionate attention to each of 

 these valuable products, and endeavour to fortify ourselves against 

 fluctuations of markets, falling off in the demand for certain products, 

 as well as against all the predatory visitations of animal and fungoid 

 organisms which too often attend a too exclusive effort to take 

 advantage of the vegetable wealth of Nature. 



A very common impression exists, that most of the rich soil of the 

 "West Indies has been already under cultivation, and that, in many 

 respects, it is almost exhausted. How far this is borne out by facts 

 will appear from the following. In British Guiana, for instance, 

 cultivation, so far, is wholly confined to about a dozen or fifteen 

 miles along the sea coast ; while the vast, rich lands of the interior 

 are wholly untouched. In Trinidad, according to an official estimate, 

 * less than one-tenth of its area is cultivated, and its resources are 

 developed only to a small extent.' Out of an estimated extent of 

 1,280,000 acres of splendid ' cohune ridge' or alluvial virgin soil, in 

 British Honduras, according to a late return, only some 10,000 acres, or 

 less than one-hundredth part, is, or has been, under cultivation. Com- 

 ing to the older and more settled Colonies, as they have been for the 

 most part under cultivation in sugar, lands on the lower slopes of 

 the hills and in the plains only, have been chiefly worked. The 

 bulk of the hill lands, most of which possess magnificent soil and a 

 splendid climate, has been practically untouched. 



For instance, in Jamaica, on the northern slopes of the Blue 

 Mountains, there are, at the present time, about 10f),000 acres of 

 land in virgin forest, richer and finer than any now cultivated, 

 admirably adapted for the growth of tea, coffee, and cinchona. At 

 lower elevations, in the central districts of the Island, to the west, 

 I estimate that above the range for sugar, there are fully 200,000 

 acres suitable for the cultivation of oranges, cacao, spices, and most 

 tropical produce. 



In the neighbourhood of Spanish Town, and within easy reach of 

 railway facilities, the Eio Cobre irrigation works embrace an extent 

 of country equal to about 50,000 acres, now mostly in pasture and 

 ruinate, but admirably adapted for the cultivation of bananas, 

 oranges, cacao, and spices. 



In the Lesser Antilles, to the west and south, similar circumstances 

 are found, and indeed throughout the West Indies you will hardly 

 find a single island without plenty of unoccupied land suitable for 

 the growth of either sugar, cacao, coffee, spices, tobacco, or cocoa-nuts. 

 Barbados, and possibly Antigua, are the only islands of any 



