313 
prepared last January for the Agricultural Exhibition. I should 
-be pleased to hear your opinion o cte m, and any suggestions yon 
might be ila to add for my guidan 
I arrived here on December 2nd last, and have ever since been 
very busy, first with clearing the land which w in a most 
dreadfully tangled — in fact the coffee trees ee completel 
hidden by weeds ; NUS atterly I have been laying the place out. 
I have about 35 or 36 acres of land alto together, in two pieces, 
each about 18 acres in extent; the lower piece on which is my 
house, is close to Freetown, about 250 feet iva sea level ; 
splendidly situated, and well watered ; a stream running through 
irden 
the gar 
This piece I am laying out with a view to its being an 
ornamental, or pleasure garden to attract visitors, being so close 
to the town. "The great drawback i is the poorness, and shallowness 
of the soil, in fact from 3 to 4 acres of this lower piece are bare 
rock (laterite). I should like to get a foot or eighteen inches of 
poria ve put on the top, but labour is scarce. I have only 14 men 
to v k 35 acres, and carry out alterations. And again, the men 
of rain from the time I arrived until last week, when we had 
about 3; inch 
=I have started a fair sized nursery, and built a large plant house; 
sed nian: vd large pieces of land to plant when the rains 
have reconstructed, and made — roads, one of 
which oa 700 feet long and 12 feet wide with a open drain on 
a t o 
long and 20 feet wide. Now, I am very busy picking Liberian 
coffee, and pulping it, &e. EPO 
I shall be very glad when an overseer is appointed, so as to be 
Aia of some of a work, I cannot now give necessary 
attention to many thin 
The Agricultural Exhibition which was held on January 23rd 
and 24th, was a great success for a first attempt. It will now be 
held annually, T exhibited samples of coffee, cacao, cotton, fibre, 
gums, &c., also the coffee machines which arrived a few days before 
and were erected in the hall; the two small ones (one for cleaning 
coffee in parchment and the dry cherry huller) were worked. I 
which 
also prepared articles on the Lei mete of coffee and cacao, 
were dae in leaflet form, and distri 
onth I had a few days' leave, ind went to a large town 
called Port Loko, which is about 60 miles from Freetown on a 
bee ati of the Roquelle River. The first part of the journey up 
the uelle was unattractive, owing to the great width of the 
river ; Rovere, after some 10 to 15 miles it could be seen that 
the banks were covered with mangrove ong and over these the 
tallest of the inner vegetation could be of which cocoa-nuts 
and the silk-cotton tree formed the “rth features. About 
20 miles up the Roquelle we branched off into s Port e 
hiver. The Roquelle from hs point is called the Riv 
from Sesa principal town on it, Magbeli, about. me miles iun 
Free As we could only proceed with the tide, owing to its 
strong Miet soon after entering the Port Loko River, we rs AA 
at an MUCH in bum middle of. the river called Kasanko. Here 
