INTRODUCTION. 61 



natural changes, but in checking and preventing deflections, 

 d in restraining their vital energy within certain bounds. 

 One of the phases of this evolution, in the West Indian freed 

 munities, was evidently the formation of a class of small 

 roprietors, or the aggregation of a certain number of families 

 to that class where it already existed ; and the inclination to 

 become small freeholders must have been particularly strong in 

 the emancipated labourers, both on account of their long de- 

 pendence and the influence of climate. This desire of becoming 

 tters, or small freeholders, has been well developed in the 

 t number of squatters formerly existent on crown-lands, and 

 since cognisance has been taken by Government of their 

 egal occupancy, have, by the payment of a certain amount, 

 me entitled to, and actual proprietors of, the lands their 

 industry had brought into cultivation. This I consider a cogent 

 argument in favour of the opening of crown-lands under certain 

 restrictions, were it in no other than a purveyor's point of view, 

 and as a means of averting a scarcity of food consequent on a free 

 influx of population. 



Not only is vegetable life more luxuriant and vigorous between 

 the tropics than in the cold and even temperate regions, but it is 

 never dormant since there exists a perpetual blending of spring 

 and summer at one and the same time. But if immense 

 quantities of raw materials are produced in the torrid zone ; if 

 the same amount of comfort may be obtained for less labour, it 

 is but too true that human vigour is in an inverse ratio to that 

 of vegetable nature. Relaxation from mental as well as from 

 bodily exercise becomes more necessary in warmer than in 

 colder latitudes ; under the former, man cannot reasonably be 

 expected to devote more than nine hours daily to any occupation, 

 or even then to labour uninterruptedly : his mind, above all, 

 needs relaxation. This is, no doubt, the reason that people of 

 the south are so partial to dancing, gambling, and all other 

 exciting amusements, as also that they feel a preference for certain 

 occupations. They seem, for instance, to prefer the pastoral to 

 an agricultural life, and to be better fitted for the latter than for 

 manufacturing pursuits. 



As agriculturists, however, they may be said to exhibit a 

 partiality for the cultivation of certain plants, viz., for the culture 

 of those which do not require much exertion, or unremitting 

 attention ; of such as arrive most rapidly at maturity ; or of those 

 the products of which do not demand much preparation to render 

 them marketable, nor the same amount of care or attention in 

 their culture as the more delicate vegetables. As to those plants 

 which require a large and constant amount of labour to render 

 them exportable, they will cultivate them only when directly 

 compelled by legal enactments, or indirectly by circumstances. 



