480 TRINIDAD. 



Europe included — should be encouraged. In aid of this design 

 better methods of culture could be easily and successfully sub- 

 stituted for the present routine, and superior agricultural imple- 

 ments be made to supersede the hoe and cutlass. Plantains, 

 manioc, Indian corn — even tanias, yams, and potatoes, might be 

 cultivated with the plough and the cultivator. Let the example 

 be exhibited on the model farms, and many of the middle classes 

 will be, at once, satisfied to cultivate their own lands, and thus 

 secure an honourable subsistence to their families ; whilst a cheap 

 and abundant supply of wholesome provisions could be regularly 

 furnished to our markets. The white man will, himself, prepare 

 his field with the plough and harrow, and drive the cultivator 

 through his plantain walks or young manioc rows ; the 

 coloured man, by improving his condition, will rise in the social 

 scale, and those baneful prejudices — the greatest obstacle to the 

 prosperity of this fine island — will then vanish like noxious 

 exhalations before the rising sun. 



I have the honour to be, my lord, 

 Your Excellency's most obedient humble .servant, 



L. A. A. de Veeteuil, M.D.P. 

 Port-op-Spain. 



Such was the scheme I submitted for Lord Harris' con- 

 sideration some time in the year 1850. My opinions have not 

 since changed, and I am still strongly convinced that the estab- 

 lishment of a model farm, with a school of agriculture attached, 

 would confer incalculable benefits on the community. Moreover, 

 as juvenile depravity is on the increase, and the number of 

 youthful criminals augmenting to an alarming extent, such an 

 establishment might be rendered subservient as a penitentiary 

 for that class of offenders, where they could receive primary 

 instruction, religious teaching, and industrial training. 



To the plan, in the abstract, no one, I believe, can offer any 

 serious objection; by many, I know, its realisation will be 

 deemed impossible : to the latter I answer — it has been realisec 

 elsewhere to the fullest extent, and with manifold advantages. 



