SOUTHERN AFRICA. .87 
allowed by Governnient to be occupied by the owners ofsucli 
estates upon a lease of fifteen years, on condition of their pay- 
ing an annual rent of one shilling an acre. Before the expi- 
ration of the lease a prolongation of the term for another fif- 
teen years is petitioned, and the renewal seems now to have 
become a matter of course. Of such grants there are, 
In the Cape district - - - 25 
Stellenbosch and Drakenstein - 10 
Total 35 - 
4. Real estates held in fee-simple, and subject to no rent, are 
chiefly situated in the Cape district, or its vicinity. These 
are the choicest patches of land, and have originally been sold 
or granted to the early settlers in parcels of about 60 morgen, 
or 120 English acres. It is natural to suppose that lands held in 
fee-simple should be in a higher state of improvement than 
those held by any other tenure, and so, in fact, they are, though 
by no means brought to that degree which might be expected.. 
A Cape farmer has no idea of bestowing much labor or em- 
ploying his capital in the prospect of a distant profit. He is 
unwilling to plant trees, because he may not live to reap the 
benefit of them. Yet, in this climate, there is no great inter- 
val of time between dropping the seed into the ground and 
the growth of the tree. The oak, the stone-pine, the poplar, 
and the native silver tree, are all of quick vegetation. One 
Van Reenen, a brewer at the foot of the Table Mountain, on 
the east side, planted a wood of the silvcv tree twelve years ago, 
1 
