SUGGESTIONS 



FOR 



rgamjtng a Otenttal Agricultural (Committee, 



AND 



ESTABLISHING MODEL FARMS IN THE ISLAND OF TRINIDAD. 



To His Excellency the Right Honourable Lord Harris, Grovernor 



of Trinidad. 



MY LORD, Under the present depressed state of agricultural 

 and other affairs in Trinidad, and at a time when entirely new 

 principles seem to govern the policy of the British Government 

 and the Colonial Office with regard to the colonies ; when we are 

 left, in total reliance on our own resources, to struggle with foreign 

 slave-countries raising similar produce to our own we must strain 

 every nerve to continue the unequal contest and preserve to our 

 children the landed property which is their sole inheritance. 



We cannot depend upon a protection, which is most peremp- 

 torily refused to our demands ; immigration and an adequate 

 supply of human labour are precarious aids; the wisest step, 

 therefore, as also the surest, is to avail ourselves of those means 

 which are placed within our reach, namely science and improved 

 methods, both in cultivation and manufacture. 



But, my lord, if individual information, and facts gathered by 

 a few planters, may ultimately be of service to colonial agriculture, 

 it is evident that facts carefully collected and collated by order 

 of a competent body, systematically arranged by well-informed 

 and practical men, so as to form a system of local husbandry 

 based thereupon, and made public by means of the local press 

 must be of the greatest benefit to the landholders and the com- 

 munity at large. 



In countries, such as England, where thousands of acres are 



