172 TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 



proprietors of land and slaves, from which there is little stimulus 

 to industry. 



It must be evident that the apathy and difficulty of increasing 

 agriculture — of there being no adequate supply of milk, and 

 much less of butter, where there are so many cattle and sheep — 

 and the scanty supply of eggs, where there should be an abundant 

 stock of poultry, can alone be under such circumstances, from 

 there being no lower class of inhabitants dependant on their own 

 industry, and no establishment or settlement for the slaves when 

 grown up. 



There are no villages for them, or small spots of ground to 

 cultivate, as is the case in the West Indies. 



The Chinese also who are here, are not so much employed in 

 agriculture as in labour. I think an experiment may be made 

 with prospect of future benefit, by establishing men in small com- 

 munities in a few places on the island, and to insure their industry, 

 by the ready sale of what they may rear, in a public market, 

 giving them premiums at first, and land on perpetual lease, and 

 such annual quit rent after a certain lapse of years, as may be 

 agreed upon ; in this manner the government land may be sold 

 with public and private benefit. 



But to ensure the moisture and rain, on which extensive agri- 

 culture must depend, it will be necessary to clothe the summit of 

 the mountainous ridges in the interior with trees, all the elevated 

 ridges being naked, there being no trees higher than the ridges, 

 by which, clouds are not attracted, nor vapours condensed : the 

 rocky summits of mountains of the exterior, tending still further 

 by their naked surface to keep vapour clouds elevated, by which 

 they are blown past, to fall in rain at sea. The few gum-wood 

 trees which are said to be indigenous, seem to have so little hold 

 of the ground on the sides of the ridges of Diana and High Peak, 



