APPENDIX 



SUGGESTIONS 



FOR 



Organising a Central ^grirnltural (fomtnitto, 



AND 



ESTABLISHING MODEL FARMS IN THE ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 



♦ 



To His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Harris, Governor 

 of Trinidad. 



My Lord, — Under the present depressed state of agricultural 

 and other affairs in Trinidad, and at a time when entirely new 

 principles seem to govern the policy of the British Government 

 and the Colonial Office with regard to the colonies ; when we are 

 left, in total reliance on our own resources, to struggle with 

 foreign slave-countries raising similar produce to our own — we 

 must strain every nerve to continue the unequal contest and 

 preserve to our children the landed property which is their sole 

 inheritance. 



We cannot depend upon a protection, which is most peremp- 

 torily refused to our demands ; immigration and an adequate 

 supply of human labour are precarious aids ; the wisest step, 

 therefore, as also the surest, is to avail ourselves of those means 

 which are placed within our reach, namely — science and improved 

 methods, both in cultivation and manufacture. 



But, my lord, if individual information, and facts gathered 

 by a few planters, may ultimately be of service to colonial agri- 

 culture, it is evident that facts carefully collected and collated by 

 order of a competent body, systematically arranged by well- 

 informed and practical men, so as to form a system of local 



