VEGETAIiLES FRUIT — TREES. 



259 



grew large, though watery ; but it was easy to see that justice 

 had not been done to them, whole potatoes having been put 

 into holes and left to take their chance, upon a soil by no 

 means so suitable for them as micjht have been found. Planted 

 even in this rough way, Mr. Bynoe collected three pounds 

 weight of potatoes from one root. By proper management, I 

 think that they, as well as turnips, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, 

 and other esculent plants, might be brought to great perfec- 

 tion, particularly on sheltered banks sloping towards the 

 north-east. The turnips which I saw and tasted were large 

 and well-flavoured : the largest seen there weighed eight 

 pounds and a-half. Flax has been tried in a garden, and suc- 

 ceeded. Mr. Bynoe saw some of it. Hemp has never yet been 

 tried. Currant bushes {ribes antartica) have been transported 

 from Tierra del Fuego, and tried near the settlement, but 

 their fruit did not ripen properly. It ought, however, to be 

 remembered that those currants are wild, a bad sort of black 

 currant, and that when ripe in Tierra del Fuego they are 

 scarcely eatable. 



We read in Bougainville and Wallis, that thousands of 

 young trees were taken vip by the roots in the Strait of 

 Magalhaens, and carried to the Falkland Islands; but no 

 traces of them are now visible either at Port Egcmont or Port 

 Louis. Perhaps they were taken out of their native soil at an 

 improper period, exposed to frost or salt water, while their 

 roots were uncovered, and afterwards planted by men who 

 knew more of the main brace than of gardening. Bougainville, 

 however, had industrious ' families Acadiennes"* with him, 

 under whose care the young trees ought to have fared better 

 than under the charge of Wallis's boatswain. Mr. Brisbane 

 told me that he had brought over some young trees from 

 Tierra del Fuego for Mr. Vernet ; that some had died, but 

 others (which he showed me) were growing well in his garden. 

 From the opinions I have collected on the subject, and from 

 what has been effected on waste lands, downs, and exposed 

 hills in England and Scotland, by planting thousands at once 

 instead of tens, I have no doubt whatever that trees may be 



s S 



