124 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



SECTION XTX. 



On the Importance of introducing Agriculture on the Island — Erroneous 

 Notions regarding Rats; not more numerous at the Farms than in 

 England— successful Method of destroying them. 



An earnest wish to promote the interest of this island, has 

 induced me to devote my leisure to various agricultural experi- 

 ments, which have from time to time appeared in the St, Helena 

 Register. 



The results of those experiments very soon satisfied my mind 

 of the practicability of a change of system, from which the greatest 

 improvements might be expected. I was aware, however, of the 

 difficulties I should have to encounter in overcoming strong pre- 

 iudices in favour of customs that had existed from the earliest 

 period of the establishment. Thesamesort of prejudice is, indeed, 

 peculiar to farmers of all countries, and is, perhaps, equally 

 strong in England as in any other part of the world. I could not, 

 therefore, blame those who differed in opinion : but I was by no 

 means discouraged, I was fully persuaded that perseverance and 

 successful examples, would ultimately succeed in turning the 

 minds of even the most obstinate, to a change, which, I can easily 

 demonstrate, is obviously for their advantage. This change, 

 indeed, appears to me the only possible means of ameliorating 

 the condition of the landholders: and of extricating them from 

 the difficulties they experience from the limited and narrow views 

 they have long pursued ; by which they could hardly expect much 

 more than a bare subsistence. 



There is, at length, a prospect of the objects I have long had in 



