TRACTS ON VARIOUS SUBJECTS, &c. 177 



Lave been engaged for nearly five years past, will, no donbt, 

 have some weight with the remaining kw ; whose minds have 

 yet a bias to the absurd and erroneous idea " that St. Helena is 

 " a barren rock, and can never be made productive." 



How can such assertions stand against your declaration of the 

 quantity of land capable of cultivation ; against my own opinion 

 (communicated officially) " that between two and three thousand 

 acres are fit for arable land ;" and against all that has already 

 been done in the extension of the Company's farms ; as well as 

 by the recent laudable exertions of several individuals ? 



The present crops on Plantation-house farm were lately in- 

 spected by one of our principal cultivators. He had long been 

 adverse to a change of system, but he now acknowledges their 

 superiority, and the advantage of using the plough, and ex- 

 presses astonishment at seeing such exuberance on lands which 

 he had predicted would never repay the expense of bringing into 

 cultivation. 



This favourable change of sentiment has, indeed, for some time 

 past, been pretty general : at length it is strengthened and con- 

 firmed by incontestible proofs. There can, therefore, be no doubt 

 that the English practice of husbandry will gradually establish 

 itself in all parts of the Island : since it tends to reduce the ex- 

 pense of labour, and to ameliorate the lands. These circum- 

 stances will prove highly beneficial to the landholders : particu- 

 larly if they will seriously turn their minds to those sources of 

 wealth which have been pointed out to them in a paper entitled 

 " On the importance of introducing agriculture on the island of 

 " St. Helena," published in the St. Helena Register for August, 

 1812.* 



Every day produces some further proofs that this soil and cli- 



* Vide, Section XIX. 



Aa 



