TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 81 



more than two years experience in the culture of corn of all sorts, 

 of esculents, and a variety of trees, shrubs, &c. &c. 



It is indeed not to be wondered at if some of my notions upon 

 improvements, may be by some considered as chimerical, parti- 

 cularly by persons who have never in their lives seen a field of 

 corn, and who have not even had the curiosity to look at the 

 luxuriant crops which have been already raised on the Plantation- 

 house and Long Wood farms. Such persons assert that the best 

 modes of cultivation must be those which their own experience 

 and that of their forefathers have taught them ; and they add, 

 that what may do well in England, cannot succeed in this island, 

 on account of dry seasons, a want of labouring population, and 

 such like excuses, for adhering to a system of management, 

 which has been, and ever will be, if continued, most ruinous, 

 both to themselves and to the Honourable Company. 



If whatlhave recorded in the above-mentioned papers had been 

 merely matter of opinion and judgment, there might have then 

 been some plea for opposing new plans. Is it wise, or reasonable, 

 pertinaciously to persist in their old modes of husbandry, when 

 it has been incontestibly proved, from facts, that an entire change 

 of system would not only be of the most important benefit to this 

 place, but would also save the planters, in future, such losses in 

 cattle, as they have hitherto sustained in seasons of drought, as 

 well, as at those times when the rains have only in a partial 

 degree failed ? 



Being extremely anxious to impress on the minds of the 

 planters, the infinite advantage which would proceed from a 

 spirit of exertion and industry being once excited, I have already 

 taken a general view of the effects that might be expected to 

 result, in pages 30, 31, and '32 of the Laws and Ordinances. I 

 shall, therefore, confine my present observations to a subject which 



M 



