Such is the picture of St. Helena, as drawn in various parts of his introductory chapter by Mr. Brooke. He describes also, the civil and military establishment of the island; and narrates the events which have taken place in it, trom its discovery, May 21, 1501, by the Portuguese, by the loss of one of their ships on it. It was greatly improved, as a residence, by Fernando Lopez, an unfortunate Portuguese nobleman, who preferred a voluntary exile in it, to a disgraceful reception at home. That nation preserved their secret concerning this island, nearly 90 years they were at length expelled by the Dutch; who abandoned St. Helena, on establishing themselves at the Cape, in 165', and the English East India Company settled on it the same year. It was surprised by the Dutch in 1972; but was speedily regained by the English: and has continued ever since under British authority.

From the scanty patches of herbage on the heights contiguous to the sea,, neither black cattle nor sheep, even had nature fitted them. for traversing such craggy precipices, could derive inuch sustenance. But in those cliffs which in many parts are inaccessible to men, the goat finds excellent browzing, and thrives where other animals would perish.. To obtain a good breed of these creatures became an object of very early attention. Orders were sent by the company to Bombay. and Surat, to forward to St. Helena a proportion of ram and ewe goats on every homeward-bound ship, until a sufficient breeding stock was procured. But if by this it was intended to introduce a larger species, the what has been stated by the writer of Cavenmeasure would hardly appear necessary after dishe's Voyage. The fecundity of the goats in a very few years multiplied their number to such a degree that they were regarded as wild animals, and hunted down by dogs and gons without restraint. This practice was interdicted in the year 1678, by proclamation; but masters of families and house

Mr. B. states the progressive improve-keepers were permitted, on application to the

ment of the island, from cabal and anarchy to loyalty and repose: together with the plans and endeavours of various go vernors for obviating defects, as well of the port, as of the interior of the island; and we learn, that it now exceeds, in conveniencies as well as in strength, whatever it might boast of, in former times. We cannot follow our author into the particnlars of this history: for them' we must refer to the work. Neither can we enumerate the various attempts to introduce the cultivation of the vine, for the purpose of making wine; of cotton, of in digo, of sugar, of tobacco, which grows spontaneously in some places. The scarcity of fuel on this island seems to be an insuperable bar to whatever requires the aid of fire to prepare it for exportation. Seasons of dryness, also, which return every seven or eight years, are very serious hindrances to the regularity of those returns that are the best supports of a planter's exertions.

governor and council, to appropriate flocks to their own use, and to maintain them on

the parts of the Company's waste lands now called Goat Ranges: the Company reserving to themselves James's Valley and its vicinity for their own goats.

Before the destruction of the goats had been asserted to and agreed on, it was stipu lated, that those persons who had enjoyed the advantages of keeping flocks on the Company's waste land, should have the limits of the respective ranges defined, and registered, and, at the expiration of the ten years, the former indulgencies should be restored. What was, therefore, at first considered as an indulgence, was, upon that occasion, constituted a right. Laws were enacted which admitted and vested in certain persons, the right of keeping goats on certain parts of the Company's waste land. The land itself The value of this species of property depends still remains in property to the Company. on the safety or danger of the range, its extent, capability, and other local circumstances. The privilege of keeping one hundred goats in one situation will perhaps sell for one hundred pounds, whilst in another The following extract describes a pecu- it is scarcely worth thirty pounds. The right liarity, equally observable and amusing, in each range is generally possessed by two, The superabundance of goats on this three, or more proprietors, by whom stated island, where there are no wild animals days are fixed for impounding the goats; a to diminish their numbers, will be retask of difficulty and danger to any but those inured to it from childhood. A spectator, marked by the philosophic reader: it may unaccustomed to the scenery and rural ecobe compared to an occurrence at the Mau-nomy of the island, cannot but be struck ritius, as related by Buffon, where the progeny from a single pair of birds became at length the plague of the island.

with the singularity of a St. Helena goatpounding. The eye, fearfully wandering over the abyss beneath, here and there

duct.

But this may certainly be attributed'

to the peculiar manner in which they were treated. No European was suffered to strike or chastise them on any pretence whatever ; and they were punished by no other autho-, rity than the sentence of a court martial, composed of Malay officers.

catches a glance of the rill that murmurs | peal is made by punishment consisting in at the foot of the declivity. On the oppo- disgrace-even that untractable race site side a dreary rugged mountain is seen of men, the Malays, has been managed. to-rise stupendous ; here and there a small by consulting their sense of dignity. patch of herbage is discernible, but the genoral appearance exhibits little more than They were incorporated into two com-, huge impening rocks, and the apertures of panics, and trained to artillery practice. caverns, which afford shelter to the nimble They proved extremely useful, and, duinhabitants of these wilds. The interven-ring the two years which they remained tion of hanging clouds, which sometimes on the island, were no less conspicuous for obscure the depth of the valiey from sight, their discipline than for their peaceable con leaves the uncontrolled imagination to rove in the idea of unfathomable profundity. The blacks by whom the goats are impounded spread themselves on the outskirts of the range, to collect the stragglers, and impel them in a direction towards the pound by loud shouts, and rolling down stones. The echoes resounding through the vallies and cliffs, in the midst of such rude scenery, have an effect truly romantic After the lapse of an hour, or more, detached flocks of a dozen goats, or upwards, are seen, like so many moying specks, followed by their hunters, who with cautions footsteps tread their dangerous way through ledges where a single slip would precipitate them to destruc-pedition against Buenos Ayres, are so. tion. As they approach nearer to their place of destination, the different flocks unite into one; the goats move with a slower step, and the cries of the blacks ine bead with quicker repetition and a shorter note, until, arriving near the entrance of the pound, the goats rush in with rapidity, and as many of them are taken as are required for use. Each pro

prietor has his respective mark cut in the animals' ears; and during the process of following the flocks, the blacks, by observ ing those kids that keep with their masters' ewes, are enabled to put on them their proper mark when impounded. Mistakes in this instance are rarely known to occur. I often happens that in driving the goats a few will break away, and effect their escape; but they are sometimes re-taken and secured by the celerity of their pursuers, who run among the ledges, and spring from rock to rock, on the brink of precipices that would justify a description such as Shakespeare has given of Dover Cliff. As many of the planters are as active and expert as the blacks in this exercise, they are well calculated for the service of riflemen, a corps in which they are embodied. A range, called the Devil's Hole, on the S. W. side of the island, is so very steep and dangerous, that the proprietors seldom procure a goat from it without the aid of a fowling-picce.

We observe with satisfaction that cor. poral punishment has been disused among the slaves, who are now incited by medals and rewards; and among the soldiery,to whose feelings of personal honour an ap

The facilities afforded by St. Helena, in recovering many hundreds of soldiers, who had quitted India in an enfeebled condition, in contributing to sudden and spirited attacks on the Dutch, as well on their shipping, as on the Cape, and since Mr. B. composed his volume, to the ex

many instances of the advantages to be derived from this post of observation. An Appendix containing charters, regulations, &c. for the colony concludes the volume.

Communications to the Board of Agricul ture; on Subjects relative to the Husbandry, and internal Improvement of the Coun try. Vol. VI. Part I. 'Price 15s. bds. pp. 207. W. Nicoll, London, 1808.

THE Board of Agriculture is one of those institutions, that do equal honour and service to the age which has effected their establishment. From the united efforts of a number of intelligent and scientific men, many beneficial results must ensue, although the communications of an individual may be thought of small importance alone. The variety of subjects, too, that are treated on, in such a collection as that before us, contributes essentially to the usefulness of the work, and may not seldom afford instruction to a party on one subject, whose researches are intendedly directed to another.

A work that consists of short essays is not susceptible of analysis: we shall there fore only observe, that the chief contents of this volume are,--a paper on the plant. ing of waste lands, by the Bishop of Landaff; another by the Rev. James Willis of Sopley, Hants; a letter by J. C. Curwen,

to say that the larches are as thriving as I could wish them to be; thousands of them measuring from fourteen to eighteen inches At the same time, and on the same mnounin circumference, at six feet from the ground.

Scotch firs were planted; these looked flourishing, and annually made good shoots for six or eight years after planting; they then began to decay, and are now, literally speaking, all dead.

M. P. on soiling cattle; experiments by Edward Sheppard, esq. on Merino sheep; with an account of the cultivation of hemp and flax in Russia, &c. by James Durno, esq. British consul at Memel. The com-tain, but apart from the larches, 29,500 munications that follow these, contain various valuable hints, on different subjects, as red oats, barley, ruta-baga, carrots, beans, &c. on embankments, and reservoirs, on the methods of destroying insects, on planting roads, on the poor, &c. We are also favoured with an opportunity of comparing the agriculture of our neighbours in Flanders, and Germany, with our own; also that of far distant India. Other articles are added, of importance in their places. The whole number of papers is 32.

We think, however, that the date of several of these communications being so far back as 1794, 96, or 98, the promises of further experiments, to be reported when complete, should have given place to statements, which, we may fairly presume, have been made, of the result of those experiments, in the course of ten or a dozen years; or if their projectors had found cause to abandon them, the Secretary should have consulted the dignity of the Board, by substituting less dubious propositions, in a work intended to be standard among a considerable class of the community.

The Bishop of Landaff states the advantages to be derived from the planting of waste lands, in a very favourable manner. Soil, exposure, and other considerations. must regulate such undertakings: yet, as we are glad when we meet with mountains, or moors, formerly rude and barren, now adorned with growing woods, we cannot but recommend his lordship's paper to particular attention. The reve

rend writer informs us, that,

2

The land on which the experiment recently made by his lordship, and to which his letter chiefly refers, is called Gomershow.

It is very rocky, producing, as to the greatest part of it, nothing but strong ling its elevation is so great, that it is seen in every direction, at a great distance, rearing its hemispherical head, above all other mountains in the vicinity of Winandermere. If the larches which are now planted, at six feet distance, quite round the sides, and ot the top of this mountain, should thrive well, entertain the strongest hopes, we may in of which, from their present appearance, I future become less solicitous about shelter for this hardy tree, and less disposed to plant them closer than six feet apart, than many seem at present to be. If my expectations are disappointed, the failure will not be without its use, as a warning to others.

The whole sum expended in planting 322,500 larches, at 30s. a thousand, amounts to £483, 15s. say £483. The fencing_the the account, because the land must have been plantation is not in this estimate, taken into fenced before it could have been let as a sheep pasture, aud the relative advantage of planting, instead of pasturing it, is the object under contemplation. If £483 be improved at the compound interest of £5 per cent. for sixty years, it will amount to £9,021 this sum is the loss sustained in sixty years by whole loss. The rent of 379 acres will be planting 322,500 larches; but it is not the lost for ten years; this rent (say £47, at

2s. 6d. an acre) being improved for ten years, will amount, to £519, and will make the whole loss in sixty years amount to £9,612.

The land called Wansfell, on which I made a plantation of forty-eight thousand larches near Ambleside, and for which I received a If any one should be of opinion, that the gold medal in 1789, from the Society for the pasture will not, at the expiration of ten years, Encouragement of Arts, &c. has been, for (on account of the space which will then be several years, let at a greater rent, as a sheep occupied by the larches), be worth more than pasture, than I could have had for it before I £27 a year, we may add to the preceding planted it; nor are the trees injured in the sum £9,612, the amount of £20 a year (the slightest degree, by the sheep. As this was supposed diminution in the value of the pasthe first effort made in Westmoreland of plant- ture) improved for fifty years; that amount ing very high ground with larches; and as I will be £4,186, and the whole loss in sixty was dissuaded from planting there, by the ge-years, by planting 322,500 larches on 379 neral opinion, that no tree would ever arrive in acres of land, worth half a crown an acre, that situation at the thickness (as was said) of will be £13,798. a knife haft, I have great pleasure in being able

Having thus stated, with sufficient minute

ness, the amount of the whole loss which can probably be sustained by this undertak ing in sixty years, I might proceed to make a circumstantial estimate of the profit which will probably be derived from it at twenty years hence, when one half of the trees, viz. 161,000 (supposing 500 to have perished) should be cut down; and at forty years hence, when one half of the remainder, viz: 80,000, (supposing another 500 to have perished) should be taken away; and at sixty years hence, when (though another 500 should have perished,) there will be 80,000 trees of sixty years growth, and not more than 302 on an acre to be felled, if the then proprietor should have the heart to do it.

There is a quantity of land, both in Great Britain and Ireland, of very little value in its present state, and which cannot be converted, with profit to the undertaker, either into arable or good pasture land, but which be ing planted with larches, would immediately pay a rent of above thirty shillings a year. This assertion requires some illustration....

It consists in cutting down the whole at twenty or thirty years growth, and replanting the ground. A reasonable doubt however may arise, whether the same will yield a second crop of larches as valuable as the first; but

Great quantities of waste lands, (says he) and of commons appurtenant to cultivated lands, and of open fields, have for some years past been annually inclosed by acts of parliament, and the lands thus brought into seve ralty have been so improved by planting in some places, and by mending the pasturage in others, and by converting much into tillage which had never been ploughed before, that the whole kingdom is in these respects, as well as in its commercial relations, far more flourishing than it was forty years ago. I indeed am not one of those who consider the increased luxury of the country as a public benefit, or as any proper criterion of public strength and prosperity; yet, when I see the great bulk of the people (I speak not of the vicious refuse of an overgrown capital), to be better fed, better clothed, better lodged, and better educated, than the same class either ever was, or now is any other part of the

world, I cannot but look upon the situation of this country to be extremely prosperous.

I am not ignorant that our commerce is the parent of our national opulence; and that our opulence, rather then the number of our people, is the present sinew of our national strength. But should commerce ever desert us, as it has deserted all other countries in which it once flourished, I am anxsupposing experience to prove this doubt ious that we should still be able to maintain to be ill founded, and five hundred acres to our station as a free people, among the des be planted with larches at six or eight feet potic powers of Enrope. It would be far bet distance, after twenty-five years let twenty ter for us, to be a free nation of labouring acres be cut down, and the land be replant-peasants, than a nation of gentlemen, weared: when the whole is thus gone over, the ing chains of slavery gilt by the gold of comfirst replanted part will be twenty-five years old, and be ready for the axe; and all the 'other parts will be ready in succession, twenty acres every year, for ever; affording a rent, after the first twenty-five years, of £1,500 a year from 500 acres of waste land. This rent is founded on the supposition of an acre of larches of twenty-five years growth being worth only £75 though there is good reason to conjecture, that it will be worth more; and a certainty that for the first twenty-five its value will be

account of the increasing age of the wood.

This hint, may perhaps be of value to some of our readers.-Why should any land be waste ?

As we pay great deference to the opinion of those who have passed many years in the world, and have had opportunities of estimating present times by comparison with former, we are happy to find his lordship differ strongly from those who indulge a kind of despondency, on the contemplation of evils among mankind, which while every reasonable mind ments, it should meet with fortitude,"

merce.

Certainly we would not have commerce supplant the national attention to agriculture; and as trade is proverbially fickle, let us not rest our dependence unreservedly on such a basis.

Mr. Willis relates with approbation the cautious experiments of his neighbour, Mr. Clapcott. We heartily join in recom mending equal prudence, at first, to others, who may intend to adopt more energetic measures and to conduct their operations on a widen scale after they have profited by results obtained with little labour and

hazard.

In March 1804, Mr. Clapcott inclosed with an earth bank 3 feet high; 54 feet at the bottom, 4 feet at top, at 1s. 3d. per lug, part of which is planted with farz, part with quicksets, a square field of six acres covered with short heath and a few furz scattered on the surface. The soil he made choice of for worst part of his allotment; it was such an his experiments, was neither the best nor the la-average quality, as would family and honestly try the value of the lands, in the different

I have found the wool of his majesty's ram much degenerated, from the comparison of specimens in 1803 and the present year. He has been kept in the highest state possible, on the best pastures in the summer, and with corn in the winter, and has been very hard cul-worked. I do not find such depreciation in the wool of the female produce from his majesty's ewes; they have not been kept in such high condition, and their fleeces are as fine as those of the original ewes, which died after bringing two lambs each.............

Although some modern writers, and, amongst others, M. De Lasteyrie, in his Treatise on Spanish Sheep, have asserted, that the quality of the wool does not depend upon the nature of the pasturage, I cannot think they are borne out by facts or by sound reason. That, to a certain degree, as far as being essential to the health of the animal, nutritive pastures are necessary to the produc tion of good and healthy wool, I readily admit; having frequently observed, that the wool of a half-starved sheep is sickly, and void of proof in manufacture. But, when the animal is kept high, and, by nutritious food, pushed forward in its growth, I am convinced that the fibre enlarges with other parts of the frame, and that, whenever an increased weight of wool is so produced, a deterioration in quality aftends it.

shapes of management, as might be employ. ed on lands in the state of nature. The re sult of these experiments, expenses, product, and all things considered, were to regulate his conduct, and determine the fate of the extent of his future inclosures. This is a wise and prudent method of commencing heath tivation. I have ever recommended my friends to begin with small quantities, to proceed gra wally, and not to attempt to break up at any time, a greater breadth then they can faithfully attend to in all its branches of culture. By thus feeling their way, before they advance to far, they can retract or pursue their undertaking, according to the success of it. However, contrary to this doctrine, and I speak it with regret, many of my friends have speculated too largely in their endeavours to fertilize these wastes, without paying a due and proper attention to the culture or quality, of the soil, without a sufficiency of manures, and with little judgment, have consequently fallen into errors and mistakes, attended with a heavy and fruitless expense. This inconsiderate way of proceeding has brought the system of heath farming into disrepute; lands that have been broken ep have been relinquished in disgust, and suffered to return to a state of nature, when the failure may be attributed, not to the inferior quality of the soil, Fat to the inferior judgment of the cultivator. It is possible that in some places the ve The advantages of irrigation were un-getation may be forced by culture, and known in Yorkshire, in 1809; and the this again, may force the sheep that first attempt at the practice by Edward feeds on it; a principle of deterioras Wilkinson, esq. of Potterton lodge, near tion from which the more natural pastures Witherby, was ridiculed by the country would be free. around it. The success of the method has completely repelled that unwise prepossession against a novelty; and we hope that no gentleman will be deterred from making any experiments that he thinks likely to succeed, by the fear of encountering the laugh of those who are little able to comprehend his reasons, or to estimate his intentions.

Mr. Corwen speaks of schistus, hitherto considered as an enemy to vegetation, as being completely pulverized, by a mixture of hot lime; and in this state, when thinly spread, as making a good top dressing; such incredibilities may ingenuity effect even almost in opposition to nature. The interest we take in the improvement of British wool, has been manifested on many occasions, we have, therefore, read with attention Mr. Sheppard's ac count of his experiments made with the Merino breed of sheep. One particular will engage the attention of the naturalist.

Mr. Durno's paper on the management of hemp and fax is well entitled to con sideration. As the cultivation of these plants is less likely to be adopted on a large scale, in Britain, than in some of her colonies, we recommend this paper to those who have connections in Canada, or other parts. The succeeding paper on the culture of flax, by the late Robert Somerville, esq. is interesting at home: but while the raising of food is of such extraordinary consequence to Britain, as it is at present, we know not how to recommend any diversion of our agricultural strength from that necessary labour, Mr. S. however, affirms, that there is no need to employ good arable lands in this way, but that very large crops, of both hemp and flax may be obtained from moors, mosses, swamps, wastes, &c. with little labour and at small expense, while the tillage and other operations, given for the flax crops, will greatly facilitate their in