TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 5 



cheap sort offence for their stone walls! Besides, if the Palina 

 Christi were extensively cultivated, which might easily be done 

 by making' the hedge-rows 20 feet or more in thickness, the 

 people of this island may not only speedily raise fuel, but may also 

 participate in a lucrative branch of commerce, which they have 

 hitherto left to others. It is well known, that considerable quan- 

 tities of the oil of palma christi are annually sent from India to 

 England, where it fetches a very high price : in no part of the 

 world can it thrive better than at St. Helena. 



If the above sort of fences were generally introduced, they 

 would both secure and shelter the lands. — Cultivation might 

 then be carried on with facility, and without interruption, and 

 the Planting Law might be easily complied with ; for the lands, 

 at first brought into cultivation, might be converted into planta- 

 tions of trees for useful timber, in the proportions required by the 

 original tenures. Other lands might afterwards be inclosed and 

 cultivated with corn, potatoes, mangel wurzel, lucerne, guinea 

 grass, &:c. These valuable artificial grasses might indeed be 

 raised among the trees as crops are in Italy : but it is much to 

 be apprehended, that unless the goats, as well as sheep, could be 

 confined, they will defeat every plan of improvement, and wilf 

 occasion constant vexation from their incessant depredations. 

 Wherefore, as it is morally impossible to restrain those animals 

 without incurring an enormous expense in fencing the lands, 

 there seems to be no other possible mode of checking the further 

 progress of the vast ruin and waste they have committed, nor any 

 prospect whatever of restoring wood to the island, than by their 

 total extermination, retaining only a very limited number of 

 sheep to each land-holder, on condition, however, that they are 

 tended, or confined, entirely to his own lands. 



The measure of extermination was resorted to by the planters 



