xxiv. Timehri. 



" 2. The widespread belt of the lower hills and plains is 

 " covered with a seemingly inexhaustible forest containing many 

 " kinds of trees which yield timbers and other products of commercial 

 11 vulue. As far as has been ascertained its soils are mainly sedentary 

 "ones, the decomposition-products in situ of its country-rocks, and 

 " are of low agricultural value. Our Dutch predecessors were well 

 " aware of their low value and with characteristic sagacity, after a 

 " short experience of attempting to cultivate some of the more prom- 

 "isiog soils in the lower parts of the belt, abandoned them, and after 

 " empoklering cultivated parts of the exceeding fertile coastlands to 

 " which, later, they appear to have confined their agricultural efforts. 

 "But the country-rocks in this forest-belt are in many parts of it 

 " gold-bearing to a marked extent, and are subject under the pre- 

 " vailing condititions to singularly complete decomposition , with the 

 " result that auriferous deposits in places of high value, are found 

 " over large areas of it. Its resources are therefore almost 

 "wholly, if not entirely, confined to forest, and mineral products. 



"3. The savannah-belt, at present practically undeveloped, 

 " but which in time may become a great district of cattle-ranches." 



The commonly held view that soils in the tropics must be of very 

 hi<*h fertility is directly contrary to facts. The intensity of all chemical 

 action in the tropics, and especially of oxidation and hydration, is opposed to 

 the production in situ of widely spread areas of soils of high fertility. The 

 most fertile parts are and must be the alluvial and fluviatile plains, especially 

 those which have been formed under swamp-conditions where accumula- 

 tions of ve°etable debris and of nitrogen take place. Such are the front-lauds 

 and the oreat areas to the northwards of the lowest scries of rapids and 

 cataracts on the lower river courses of this Colony. The idea that tropical 

 soils merely want tickling with a hoe to produce large and remunerative 

 crops of economic products is an error ; tickling a soil in the tropics 

 always results in the production of immense crops of weeds. I am 

 satisfied from nearly forty years' experience in connection with tropical 

 agriculture that permanent cultivation in the tropics requires a higher 

 decree of skill and more persistent and sustained effort than it does in 

 temperate or sub-tropical ands. 



My considered views are and always have been in accordance with 

 the stronof recommendations made by Sir Daniel Morris in his report on 

 the Colony to the Royal West Indian Commission " that no time should 

 " be lost to utilize without delay the most accessible Crown lands of the 

 "Colony, leaving to the future the development of interior lands, which 

 " will require means of communication of a more costly character and 

 " that at present the want of easy means of communication and quick, 

 " cheap transit to town of produce prevents lands above the first falls in 

 "the rivers being used for agricultural purposes. Wlieu, as is probable, 

 " such communication is provided the development of the interior lauds 



