290 On preserving Potatoes for Sea Store or Exportation. 
general go out in ballast, or not more than one-third freighted, 
carrying out some sinall quantity of European commodities; but 
the bulk of their freight consisting of empty casks, and materials 
for making casks. It is also well known how valuable a food 
potatoes are in the West India islands, and how mich they are 
prized there: no one acquainted with the West Indies and its 
commerce, but must be aware how much labour of the unfortu- 
nate negro is at present employed in making casks, puncheons, 
&c. for bringing home the produce, and of what immense value 
casks are there. Let timber imported from our North American 
colonies be made into casks, hogsheads, rum puncheons, cof- 
fee barrels, &c. &c. let these be filled in my mode, as described, 
with potatoes, I contend, that the value of the casks which 
brings out potatoes will more than compensate for their freight, 
and the earth will keep the cask perfectly sweet, and ready, 
without any labour, to bring home any produce. 
The potatoes must come cheap to market, the ship owner 
can afford cheap freight, having now none, or next to none, 
for his outward-bound vessels, 
The farmers on the sea-coast can easily supply more than two 
hundred thousand tons of potatoes, and the population of the 
West India islands would consume more than that quantity. 
Any overplus required may be readily supplied in like manner 
in Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, Canada, &c. The food of the 
negro is at present Indian corn and meal, which, with a smail 
quantity of potatoes now used in the islands, was formerly prin- 
cipally supplied by the United States, who receive in return, in 
cash and produce, nearly ten millions of dollars. Potatoes and 
fish, together with the produce of the islands, will give a much 
more wholesome food, in a greater abundance, and at a more 
reasonable rate. 
The policy of our legislature surely should be to encourage 
the parent state and the colonies, supplying each other in every 
possible manner, and to discourage aliens from reaping advan ~= 
tages from British capital, industry, and exertion, more par- 
ticularly so when by judicious arrangement both the colonies 
and the mother country can have their wants supplied better 
from their superabundant productions than from foreign states. 
Proper encouragement for the fisheries of Newfoundland, with 
settleinents for those employed in that part of the service on the 
coast of our settlements in North America, is indispensably ne- 
cessary—markets there are in abundance for the employment of 
more ships and seamen than we have now in that trade. 
By my plan of preserving potatoes, a wholesome food will be 
provided for the West India islands, much better and cheaper 
than they possess at present; a valuable freight for our ne 
ward- 
