74 Timehri. 
with due seriousness, they are no longer open to ridicule,—they are becoming 
a business and are being conducted on business lines. Interest then of the 
right sort has been awakened. The seed has been sown, it only requires, let us 
hope, to be watered and nurtured and skilful treatment for it to develop into 
a full-grown tree, which in course of years shall produce fruit ‘an hundred- 
fold.” 
It must be carefully borne in mind that, though we consider that there is 
abundant room for these subsidiary products and though we hope to see them 
multiplied and extended considerably, yet, in our opinion, the sugar cane is 
the ideal crop for large areas in this country. Judicious care, with the routing 
out of all spirit of rivalry, must then be the duty of all growers of these crops, 
which, advocate for them as we are, we yet only consider them as props to the 
colony’s welfare, not as substitutes for King Sugar, which by reason of the 
numbers of labourers it is bound to employ, the turning over of large sums of 
money annually, etc., must, probably for a very large number of years, retain 
the superior position it now holds. A more fatal mistake than to take up the 
growing of any of the numerous crops, which come under the category of 
“minor products,” in a spirit of antagonism to the staple crop could not 
possibly be conceived. On the other hand the sugar planter should on his 
side deal gently with the infants nowstruggling up, if he has the welfare in the 
future of this colony genuinely at heart. To smother them at their birth will 
be a crime, which in course of time will re-act on his own head ina manner that 
may possibly surprise him. 
A hopeful feature, we take it, will be the reflection which this activity of 
the large capitalists wili have on the smaller class of farmer. Is it not reason- 
able to hope that ere long he too will realise the potentialities of these mis- 
called Minor Industries 2? The small farmer has, in our opinion, opportunities 
that few places in the world offer so readily of becoming an independent, pros- 
perous proprietor, if he would but take an intelligent interest in these industries. 
The East Indian knows, and has known, fora long time how to grow rice, when 
he discovers that he can grow such crops as cacao and limes (and we may rest 
assured that he will learn) and make an excellent living from their cultivation, 
he at any rate will require neither whip nor spur to urge him on. He will 
then become more thriving and prosperous than he is even now, and will piove 
more than any other ‘agriculturist what these crops can be made to do for the 
proprietor of small means, and he will by such methods become so important 
a social and economic factor in the future that the Black, aye, and other races, 
will have to gird up their loins, East Indian fashion, and run their hardest 
and fastest, if they are not to be left completely behind. Already they are‘ 
forging ahead, they have paid their price for prosperity by hard and daily work, 
self-denying thrift, careful living and absence of luxury, and they are bound 
in any case to come still more to the front. By means of these minor industries 
their way to the winning tape will only be shortened, they will get there in 
course of time in any case. 
In a paper such as this it is out of the question to deal with the merits of the 
various crops, their methods of cultivation, the care and attention necessary 
