OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED. 475 



executive, and, if properly organised, would, I believe, work 

 successfully. 



Men are fond of distinction, and were the members of the 

 " Central Committee " to derive some importance from the 

 appointment, it is to be anticipated they would gladly devote 

 time and attention to the object of the institution. I therefore 

 suggest that the committee should be consulted on all matters 

 connected with or affecting the agricultural interest of the 

 colony, as is the case in France. That body would then be, not 

 a mere sugar-planters' committee, but would include cacao and 

 other planters. It would thus be enabled to turn its attention 

 to the cultivation of ground-provisions, tobacco, and oleaginous 

 plants, the growth of which could be encouraged by the sale of 

 crown lands to such natives and immigrants as might be disposed 

 to devote labour or capital to that species of culture. 



The committee should be appointed, primarily, by the Governor 

 — the vacancies to be afterwards filled from a list of candidates 

 prepared by the committee, the qualifications for the distinction 

 being of a peculiar description. 



I beg, in continuation, to offer a few remarks on the model 

 farms. 



It is to be expected that any scheme for the formation of 

 model farms in Trinidad will meet, if not with disparaging 

 criticism, or even opposition, at least with perfect indifference. 

 The capital to be invested in the purchase and improvement of 

 the farm will be considered as so much cash abstracted from the 

 public purse, to gratify a chimerical project. Partly to invalidate 

 this objection, I consider that the formation of the "Central 

 Committee'''' ought to precede the establishment of the farm. 

 The control exercised by the former would be a sort of guarantee 

 to the public of success in the latter. 



We have already had superabundant proofs that it is difficult 

 to rouse the planters even to a sense of their best interests. If, 

 on the one hand, we find reasons for this in their ignorance of 

 agricultural science and the art of husbandry, on the other, 

 we may also trace this apathetic unconcern to the following 

 cause : — 



Perceiving, in the midst of their distress— brought on either 

 by the present commercial crisis, or the glut of their staple, 

 which has been thrown into, and still remains in the market— 



