AGRICULTURE IN 1820. 33 
kokers and sluices, and to preserve 8 or g inches of fresh 
water in the small drains, the ensuing month of March 
being generally very dry, and causing every kind of 
cultivation to suffer much. In August it will be prudent 
to preserve even more water within, to meet the long 
dry season. 
A side line drain tor 500 acres should be 15 feet broad 
at the koker, and may decrease to 6 feet at the back 
dam, but if the cultivation is to be rapidly extended it 
should not be reduced to less than 12 feet breadth 
throughout. 
Supposing an equal remunerating value in the different 
articles of colonial produce, the first 500 roods from 
the sea should be planted in cotton, the second 500 in 
canes and the last 500 in coffee and plantains. 
The first 500 being of most recent formation is too 
much impregnated with Marine salt to give good sugar 
till after many years of cultivation and drainage, and the 
last 500 roods verging upon the pegas lands has a veye- 
table surface highly favourable to the growth of plantains, 
coffee or cacao, but not of canes. Plantains are not 
injured by the salt of front lands, but they are too much 
exposed to the sea breeze, which throws them down 
before ripe, and renders it desirable to have them behind 
the other cultivation and as much sheltered as possible. 
Coffee sows itself under the bearing trees in great 
profusion, the strongest plants at 3 or 4 months old are 
removed into the nursery where they remain at a foot 
apart till 15 or 18 months old, they are then planted 
under the shade of the plantains in any sized bed, at 8 or 
g feet distance. When three years old they are topped to 
about 5 feet in height at which they are kept for the 
E 
