EXTENSION OF COTTON CULTIVATION. 53 



cotton has as yet been cultivated by the natives in their 

 peculiar style. Those who would look in the islands for 

 broad square acres covered with any given produce will 

 be seriously disappointed. The Fijian cultivator has such 

 an abundance of good land at his command, and holds 

 such stringent notions about the fallows to be observed, 

 that he selects patches here and there only, which after 

 an annual or biennial occupation, are deserted for others 

 cleared for the purpose. When cotton was recom- 

 mended to him, he followed his old cherished system, 

 and the isolated patches now beheld are the result. 

 These patches are of various sizes, but I have not seen 

 any containing more than fifty plants. In Namara, and 

 other districts subject to Ban, isolated specimens, often 

 as many as twenty, are met with on the margins of 

 every taro, banana, and yam plantation. On the island 

 occupied by Bau, the Fijian capital, Mr. Storck, my 

 assistant, counted four hundred shrubs, growing in the 

 streets and squares. The number of plants thus dis- 

 persed all over Fiji must be considerable, though no- 

 body could venture to give any approximate estimate of 

 them ; and their aggregate produce, if attentively col- 

 lected, would doubtless amount to a quantity scarcely 

 expected from such sources. Mr. Pritchard, in order 

 to open the trade, pledged himself, before leaving Eng- 

 land, to his Manchester friends, to forward 1000 Ibs. of 

 cleaned cotton within twelve months' time, and he ex- 

 perienced no difficulty in obtaining from Kadavu, Na- 

 droga, and Bau an amount exceeding that promised 

 before the time fixed for its dispatch, the first ever 

 sent home. Now that a demand has been established, 



