64 The Journal of *niE Royal 
have fetched no more than 6d. to 8d. This advance is 
only temporary, and prices, paralyzed by an augmented 
output, will soon relapse into their former condition. 
The fact is, more plantains are grown on the spot than 
are required to fill the wants of the various districts, 
with the consequence that although the city market is a 
recognised dumping ground for the produce of the 
Pomeroon and East Bank districts, the East Coast 
farmers have to aid and abet in the forcing down of 
prices in the city, by sending their surplus to find a 
market there. Partly from the necessities of the 
situation and partly from choice, all the farmers set to 
work to plant together. That they must all reap at the 
same time follows as the night the day. Here is the 
result : the market is either extremely bare or completely 
glutted. Prices are not permitted to reach anything 
like a natural point, fixed by an equable supply. This 
is a problem which the farmers might well try to grapple 
with, and its solution is commended to their serious 
thought. There is no gainsaying the fact that it is 
hard, if at all possible, to make two ends meet in 
farming enterprise as it is conducted in the colony at 
present. The farm I have been endeavouring to describe 
is free from many drawbacks that in other districts try 
the patience and tax the purse of the farmer. And yet 
with all its exceptional points nothing but the most 
precarious living can be obtained from it. The small 
farmers, as a rule, happily belong to a class whose wants 
are few, or they must in response to clamant personal 
or domestic needs, seek fresh fields and pastures new. 
Such is their rude simplicity of action, that getting the 
bare necessities of life from the sale of their provisions, 
they are content to work on without perplexing 
