100 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



alleviated — if not wholly prevented. It is well known what 

 heavy losses in cattle have been sometimes sustained in seasons 

 of drought : but, as it has been ascertained, that corn, when 

 once fairly established (even during unseasonable or scanty rains) 

 soon covers and shades the soil from the sun's heat, and from 

 the drying winds— and that it advances to maturity, even in 

 the driest weather ; it would be absurd to say that the common 

 precautions used in other countries to provide food for cattle, 

 and to avert calamities among them when the pastures fail, would 

 not succeed equally here as elsewhere. Nay, I have no hesita- 

 tion in declaring my opinion that this species of husbandry, as 

 well as every other would succeed ; and prove even more profit- 

 able to St. Helena cultivators than it is to English farmers— 

 who can have only one crop in the year : because, as vegetation 

 here is never obstructed by frost and severe winters, two certain 

 crops may be secured annually, if due attention be paid to the 

 proper seasons of putting them in the ground. 



Confident as I feel in those opinions, which are founded upon 



the basis of the most accurate experiments, I have been not a 



little astonished at the pains which I find have been lately taken 



to impress on the minds of several gentlemen in the direction for 



the afTairs of the East India Company, the total impossibility of 



introducing agriculture at St. Helena. Those who have declared 



such sentiments could have known but little of the ample returns, 



and unexampled profits, which have been derived here, from 



lands brought into cultivation. There are now in England two 



gentlemen (Lieutenant Colonel Greentree and Mr. Dunn), who 



can readily correct such erroneous assertions. They have both 



had considerable experience in improving their lands — and they 



assured me, as I stated, in a letter to the Court of Directors, 



dated the 10th of October 1809—" that in bringing land into 



