Agriculture in 1829. 
By William Hilhouse. 
[The following from a MS, in the Colonial Records in the hand- 
writing of WILLIAM HILHOUsE, appears to be part of a descriptive 
handbook of the Colony which was never published. From internal 
evidence it seems to have been written about 1829, and is interesting 
for the light it throws upon the cultivation of the estates when the 
three products, Coffee, Cotton and Sugar, were well represented. 
Several foot-notes have been left out to reduce its length, but these 
omissions do not really affeét the value of the paper.—EDITOR]. 
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Da HE first attempts at cultivation were made by 
“an Me the original Dutch Settlers in the vicinity of 
the falls of the three rivers, Essequebo, Massa- 
roony and Cuyuni. Here may still be found, surrounded 
and intermingled with trees of the growth of more than 
half a century, small groups of cacao and coffee, with 
detached heaps of broken bricks, the mouldering ruins 
of cisterns, and wrecks of the industry of a former 
generation. On traversing the sites of these long aban- 
doned abodes of our colonial forefathers one cannot help 
being struck with the idea, that their lives must have 
been one uninterrupted scene of ease and enjoyment. 
The most salubrious atmosphere; no mosquitoes, no 
fevers, or agues—detached fertile spots in the valleys, 
where as much cacao, coffee, cotton, or arnotto was 
grown as from 200 plantations could freight one Dutch 
Merchantman. The Jubilee of her arrival, with the 
Salempores, Osnaburgs, Scheidam and Karse, bespoke a 
year ago, and the mighty calculations of profit, on her 
