42 
ST. HELENA. 
now complained of (excepting the potato blight and rot, which are 
both common diseases in the Island), together with the poor crops 
obtained, and the general barrenness of the fruit trees, will not be 
remedied so long as the existing system, by which all the vitality 
of the Island is drained away, remains unchecked. The whole of the 
manure, which accumulates from stables, stockyards, &c., in the 
town, is thrown into the sea, instead of being conveyed up the hills, 
and returned to the land. By this long-continued -practice the 
lands have become almost exhausted. Moreover, a large quantity 
of guano, collected around the coast, is exported to Europe, instead 
of being used in the Island, and it is much to be regretted that the 
Government permit it, merely for the sake of swelling the revenue 
by a paltry charge of 10s. per ton exportation fee. With such a 
system continually at work, is it surprising that the farmer obtains 
but a poor crop, and fruit trees blight and dwindle away ? rather is 
it a matter of astonishment that he obtains any return at all. Forty- 
two years ago General Dallas, then Governor of the Island, was fully 
alive to this most ruinous system, and, with a view of supplying some 
practical means for lessening the cost of conveying the manure from 
the town up the hills, and back to the lands in the country, caused the 
erection of the ladder or inclined plane. This engineering work, 
carried out under the directions of Lieutenant G. W. Melliss, an 
artillery officer, comprised a ladder 900 feet in length, with upwards 
of 600 steps, communicating up the side of the hill from James- 
town to Ladder Hill, at an angle of 39° or 40°, with a tramway 
on either side, upon which waggons, in connexion with ropes and 
machinery at the top, travelled up and down. By this means 
manure was conveyed up an almost perpendicular height of 600 
feet and deposited, from whence it could easily be conveyed by 
the farmers. A secondary use of this “ St, Helena Railroad " was 
to convey stores from the town to the garrison stationed in the 
Fort of Ladder Hill, and, as it would be most invaluable for both 
these purposes in the present day, it is very greatly to be regretted 
that the whole construction has fallen into disuse and bad repair, 
the woodwork being eaten by white ants. Indeed, it is said that 
these insects visited Ladder Hill through the medium of its 
longitudinal wooden sleepers. 
An excellent stimulus to farming interests has also been allowed 
to die out with “ The Agricultural and Horticultural Society,” which. 
