154 



MANUFACTURING RESOURCES* 



not work enough to occupy the convicts if machinery was 

 employed. Of course I had nothing to say to a reason so 

 conclusive, 



The supply of these husks would be almost inexhausti- 

 ble. They have no more use or value here than walnut 

 shells have in the States, and may be had by the ship load 

 for the mere expense of cartage. A cargo of a thousand 

 tons could be manufactured for a thousand dollars, and be 

 worth in the port of New York not less than $4,000, as 

 soon as the usefulness of the article became generally 

 known. 



This is but a glimpse of the inexhaustible manufacturing 

 resources of Jamaica, which only wait the appearance of 

 an interested and industrious class of resident proprietors to 

 be developed. For six or eight months of the year nothing is 

 done on the sugar and coffee plantations. Agriculture, at 

 least as it is conducted at present, does not occupy the la- 

 borers more than half their time. During the rainy season, 

 by a skilful application of capital, they might be furnished 

 with full employment in sawing lumber, manufacturing 

 brick, and draining-tiles, tools and implements of husbandry 

 which are now imported altogether, if used ; in putting up 

 drugs and dye stuffs for exportation ; in preparing the cocoa 

 nut and pine-apple fibres for the various uses to which 

 foreign manufacturers might devote them ; in improving 

 the internal communication of the island by the construe- 



