132 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



hundred acres would yield a sufficiency of potatoes and other 

 esculents. After a spirit for cultivation has been once excited, I 

 have no doubt it would rapidly increase, and be carried far beyond 

 the scale I have here suggested. 



I must however remark that if two crops a year are taken from 

 the proposed 700 acres of cultivation at St. Helena, they will 

 require nearly double the number of ploughs and labour, that 

 they would in England — that is 28 ploughs, instead of 14. 



Hence it seems, that if 700 acres were constantly cultivated 

 with corn, they might produce, annually, more wheat and barley 

 than would be immediately wanted for the island consumption. 

 Part of the second crops, or green crops, if given to cattle and 

 sheep, would soon augment the island flocks;* and the number 

 of hogs that might be reared by means of those crops, for sup- 

 plying the garrison occasionally with fresh pork, would be im- 



Several persons, in England, appear to have entertained doubts as to the propriety 

 of breaking up much land on this island, from an apprehension it would interfere with 

 the grand object of raising stock for the supply and refreshment of the shipping : but so 

 far from lessening the supplies, either of cattle or vegetables, I trust, I have distinctly 

 proved that it would be the best possible means of increasing them. 



There is another erroneous notion regarding St. Helena : " rats," it is said, " are so 

 numerous and destructive that it would be wholly impossible to raise corn." This mis- 

 take has evidently originated in the fate of a few square rods of corn ; which had been 

 the utmost extent of former trials. So small a quantity, growing near the abodes of these 

 animals, would soon be devoured in any country : but where several acres of corn have been 

 cultivated on this island, even the first crop did not suffer more than it would have done 

 near the homestall of an English farmer. Tiie succeeding crop sustained no injury what- 

 ever : for, at the time of reaping the first crop, care was taken to destroy every rat that 

 had burrowed — the number was one hundred and twenty — and the consequence was, that 

 when the second crop was cut down, only three rats were found in a field of six acres. 

 In the same manner the Plantation-house garden, of seven acres, has been effectually 

 cleared of rats. Four years ago they were extremely troublesome ; but during the last 

 two years they have been wholly extirpated. 



