78 Timehri. 
The recent experiments, by the late Mr. Thomas Wardle, in the substitution 
of mechanical appliances for mere manual labour on sugar estates, if they 
should prove successful, and in the course of time we believe the problems will 
be solved, must have a happy effect on our subsidiary industries. With the 
reduction of necessary labourers on a sugar estate there must be a falling back 
on their own resources on the part of the labourers, no longer required, and 
these will, in most cases, be compelled to take to the soil as a means of liveli- 
hood. At present they are content to work for a weekly wage on an estate, 
because they shirk facing the risk, care, forethought and responsibility, which 
farming land for a living means, even in this productive country. 
Balata.—A subject such as this, of course, requires a paper for itself alone 
but one or two features might be mentioned. First as to the method of tapping 
or “bleeding ”’ as it is called. It seems to us that this could so be improved 
upon that a tree might be bled or tapped every other year instead of requiring 
a rest for five years, so that the bark can be renewed. Again we understand 
that once water gets into the latex the bleeder throw the product away as use- 
less. This, on investigation, might prove 2 needless waste. 
The methods of registration, monetary advances and the thousand and one 
ills to which this mdustry apparently is heir have been discouraging no 
doubt, but when leading men of ability have formed themselves into an 
Association the better to remedy these evils, surely we can, without being 
unduly optimistic, feel that the future of this industry is a bright one. 
There is one point in connection with these subsidiary products which we 
cannot refrain from touching upon. Jn British Guiana there seems to be lack- 
ing that pioneer spirit which has done so much for other colonies when their 
resources were unknown. Here we have lusty and sturdy lads coming to the 
colony as overseers, clerks behind the counter, etc., who, apparently, are quite 
contented with their lot in life. We also have English and other creole young 
men of ability and strong sinews, who seem to know nothing at all about 
the land of their birth—and what is stil! worse, appear to have no ambition 
at all in this direction. 
Surely the independence, the freedom, the tempting feeling of being engaged 
in the work of a man shoulc, if nothing else does, appeal to them. Life 
for these should not have for its goal, a clerkship in the Government 
Service, or a perch on the mercantile stool. There should be some satis 
faction that in re-claiming forest lands, and winning the produce from the soil, 
this: is work that cannot, by any means, be performed by a woman. The life 
has its discouragements and its risks and shortcomings, the beginning is fraught 
with care, anc btimful with anxieties, the gall of the slanderous tongue will, 
at times, annoy, but in any branch of life this ‘‘ working-day world ” will be 
found to be ‘full of briers, ’’ which must scratch and irritate. But even all 
the obstacles that will beset the path of anyone who engages in pioneer work 
of this sort cannot take away the joy that lies in “doing,” the feeling of satis- 
faction in conquering difficulties, 
And if success should crown his efforts cannot he feel more satisfaction in 
having proved his manhood by being a producer—one who has done something, 
