246 ON THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN BRITISH GUIANA. 



The colony, at present, does not produce a single bale of cotton. 

 .That is easily accounted for. When protection was taken off this material, 

 the labour of the colony, which was very limited, was concentrated and 

 employed on the cultivation of sugar, and was transferred from the unpro- 

 tected to the protected article. The consequence has been, that more than 

 half of the empoldered lands have been thrown out of cultivation, or turned 

 into pastures of little value, or have been purchased by the labouring popu- 

 lation. These lands are still capable of being easily reclaimed. The extent of 

 country which was once in cotton, but is now uncultivated, amounts to at 

 least 100 miles of sea-coast. It may be also worthy of remark, that those 

 portions of the land in the immediate vicinity of the sea, most suitable for the 

 cotton-plant, being impregnated with salt and exposed to the saline breezes 

 of the Atlantic, are not adapted for the sugar-cane — and those parts of an 

 estate further from the ocean, in which the cane grows most luxuriantly, are 

 least fitted for cotton ; as the shrub, when planted in such rich land, is 

 inclined rather to throw out leaves and sprouts, than the flower and pod on 

 which the crop depends. 



Having thus explained how well adapted the soil is for growing cotton, 

 and the climate for bringing it to perfection, the question will naturally be 

 asked, why is it not cultivated-? The answer is simple — contracted means 

 and, imtil lately, want of labour. For years the sugar-planter has been so 

 cramped for want of hands, that he greedily availed himself of all sorts of 

 labour, at extreme prices. Indeed, had it not been for the costly nature of 

 the buildings on the sugar estates, many a plantation woxdd long since 

 have been abandoned in despair. The emancipated classes will not give 

 that constant industry, without which the cultivation of the cane is sure to 

 entail loss ; and the tenacity with which they stuck out for the last cent., 

 though perhaps not blameable, is remarkable in a class which otherwise 

 shows little regard for money or the comforts it procures. All this, 

 however, is now changed for the better. The tliinking part of the com- 

 munity having always felt that the only means which coidd save the 

 Colony was immigration, they have for years followed up this object with 

 a pertinacity that would take no denial, and that scorned to siiccumb to 

 adverse circumstances. First, by voluntary contribution, next by loans, 

 then, at the colonial expense, they tried every field likely to afford relief ; 

 at length, having overcome bitter opjoosition, after many half measures, 

 Her Majesty's Government has taken a statesmanlike view of the West 

 Indian question. India and China, with their overflowing and needy 

 populations, have been opened up to our needs, and the Colony has at last 

 been able to draw sufficient labour to double the sugar-crop between 1841 

 and 1861. Judicious legislation, ably devised and manfully sustained by 

 the eminent statesman who presides over the Colonial Office, has placed 

 immigration affairs on a sound footing, and the demand for labour is met 

 by the supply. In fact, immigration is now a well organised institution, 

 guaranteed from abuse by a variety of checks, and experience has now 

 amply shewn that it is equally beneficent to the emigrant and to the 

 country which receives him. Under these circumstances, the re-establish- 



