37 



Disaster has at least given experience and now perhaps it 

 would not be too great a compliment to pay the planting 

 community to say that amongst its numbers there is no 

 lack of thinking men well grounded in experience and duly 

 alive to the necessity of trusting to such rather than to 

 mere chance. Suggestions and hints are now freely ex- 

 changed and no one need fear a rebuff provided his experi- 

 ence has been somewhat of an extended nature. A lively 

 interest is taken now in the result of experiments and 

 many a fortunate Planter owes his prosperity to having care- 

 fully watched the failures, experiments and successes of 

 his Brother cultivators. Many a man of five or six years 

 experience can now successfully compete with the older 

 hands but s'till all are ready to gain information and it is 

 generally allowed that the older the planter gets the more 

 he finds he has yet to learn. 



It is not however for the " old hands" that this little 

 manual is particularly intended, it is more for the younger 

 men who have recently ar rived and have thrown their lot in 

 with our own. As I before remarked a Planter of 5 or 6 

 years experience may in many things successfully compete 

 with those who have been three times, as long in the country, 

 but I maintain there are few who would not readily admit 

 that although for " new work" they fear nothing, still that 

 in the matter of working up ' ( Old" Estates there are nume- 

 rous things concerning which information would be gladly 

 accepted. A young Planter likes to be in possession of 

 information which will suggest rather than direct, and I 

 trust that in the following pages that it may be rendered 

 apparent that there are many things which even in skilful 

 hands may be done wrong, unless the person superintending 

 them has had previous personal experience. I will make 

 no further apology to the " old hands" than to say that I 

 am well aware that cultivation elsewhere is far superior to 

 what is carried on in thia Province and I willingly allow 



