96 TlMEHRl. 



to Mr. Russell the first attempt was made at Pin." 

 Canejield, Berbice, followed by another at Pin. Friends, 

 and by yet another (coupled this time with tile drainage,) 

 at Pin. La Penitence. 



While these trials of horse husbandry were going on 

 in the colony, considerable attention was being direfted 

 at home to steam ploughing, and the legislature of this 

 colony voted $5,000, to be offered as a prize to any 

 person who introduced steam tillage into the colony. 



The late Mr. Russell states that the first trial of 

 steam tillage was made on Pin. Houston, and subse- 

 quently further trials were made at Leonora, for which 

 Mr. Russell claimed " partial success." and which, the 

 " Sugar King" in his pamphlet alrejdy referred to, re- 

 marks, attra6led the attention of Mr. Crum EwiNG, with 

 the result that this gentleman decided to send out to 

 Demerara a praflical agriculturist to report upon the 

 feasibility of carrying out on his estates, a system of 

 modern tillage, with tile drainage, &c. 



In a letter which Mr. Alexander Crum Ewlng wrote 

 to me last year, and which was subsequently published 

 in The Louisiana Planter, the opening paragraph ran as 

 follows : — 



" There is probably no part of the world except the Straits Settle, 

 ments where so thorough a cultivation is given to the land by hand 

 labour alone as in Demerara; or where so many people are required to 

 the acre. And, it is a question which must strike everyone interested in 

 cultivation there, what would be the effeft if anything were to happen to 

 curtail imported labour, or, if there were an exodus of the coolies' 

 either returning home or emigrating elsewhere? 



*' At the time it was decided to introduce implemental cultivation on 

 our estates, there had been some cause for apprehension. We had 605 

 indentured coolies and a good many (240) Chinese. The whole 

 cost of introducing the latter was undertaken by a few proprietors of 



