126 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



and compare the immense diiference in produce between even 

 the best pastures and a crop of green fodder of oats or barley, 

 (Goat Papers, page 76. St. Helena Register for April, page 6) 

 and then ask themselves this question — " Have not our lands, in 

 many places where they have been tried upon a small scale, 

 yielded abundant crops of corn and esculents #if ice a year?" The 

 answer is too obvious not to confound the most sceptical, or I 

 should rather say, the most obstinate, who may yet persist in 

 declaring, that " agriculture here can never succeed." Such 

 assertions must appear most futile and unfounded, when contrasted 

 with numerous facts that have been already so clearly and incon- 

 trovertibly established. 



It is now four years that I have given my attention to this sub- 

 ject ; and after distinctly proving the capabilities of the soil and 

 climate, I have not the smallest hesitation in declaring my opinion, 

 that if 6 or 700 acres, of the two or three thousand, that are 

 capable of being brought under the plough management, were 

 allotted to corn crops, the present population might be supplied 

 with bread corn in abundance, the stock of cattle and sheep 

 augmented by means of straw and green fodder crops; avast 

 number of hog's reared ; the lands meliorated by manure ; and 

 the breweries furnished with a sufficiency of barley for all their 

 demands. I will now proceed to examine the effects that would 

 be produced from so laudable an appropriation of even that small 

 portion of the pasture lands. 



According to an investigation detailed in my minute of the 

 31st August 1810, (published in page 6 of the " Laws and Ordi- 

 nances)" it will be found that the consumption of flour at St. 

 Helena in the year 1808, was 878994 pounds. Doctor Adam 

 Smith reckons 2000 pounds of wheat to be the produce of an 

 acre : but I will take it at 1800 pounds of flour ; at which rate 



