48 TIMEHRI. 
A country of ports and harbours will become, in spite 
of all obstacles, a maritime Power. A corn country will 
export grain, and a grazing country will trade in cattle ; 
under every disadvantage Demerary has gradually relin- 
quished every other cultivation for that of sugar, because. 
by nature most particularly adapted for that produce, and 
nothing short of ruinous and unjust restri€tion or atual 
and positive abandonment can prevent the British mer- 
chant from vesting his capital in a cultivation, so con- 
genial to the soil, so certain in its profits, and so beneficial 
to the revenue, the shipping and the commercial interest. 
Demerary is the giant of the sugar market, and in the 
possession of any other State than the British, she would 
allow of no competition. 
The average return of a sugar estate in moderately 
favourable circumstances, with 500 negroes of all descrip- 
tions attached, is about 1,300,000 Ibs. per annum. 
COTTON. 
The cotton heretofore cultivated in this Colony has been 
brought from the South-east and the neighbourhood of the 
Amazon. Not being indigenous, its crop is very uncertain, 
and though superior in quality to most other kinds, it does 
not come within 30 per cent of the price of Sea Island. 
It is cultivated in similar beds to the coffee and planted 
in squares of 6 or 7 feetapart, A handful of the seed, as 
separated by the gin, is thrown intoa hole about 3 inches 
deep, in moist weather ; a dozen of these seeds will per- 
haps spring, from whence all the weaker ones are thinned 
away, till one strong healthy plant remains, this is trim- 
med in the month of June to the height of 5 feet from 
the ground, and picked in July and Otob«r, the last being 
what is called the great crop. 
