ls.
1827 8
1828 814
1829 279
1830 99
1831 59
1834 713

The cassava root grows abundantly in most of the West India islands
and tropical America; the trouble of planting is inconsiderable, and
the profit arising from its manufacture, even by the common process of
hand-grating, is immense. I should be glad if I could induce the
enterprising of our colonial settlers to give this a fair trial, as
well as encourage the present growers to increase their crops and
improve the quality of the article, so as to render it suitable for
the English market. The manufacture of starch will one of these days
become a productive source of colonial wealth. Since cassava was first
grown in the West, its capabilities as a starch-producer have, to a
certain extent, been known, and for that purpose it has been in
limited use.

Mr. James Glen, of Haagsbosch plantation, Demerara, has recently
tested its value as an article of export, and added it to the other
industrial resources of that colony.

This gentleman, by erecting machinery on his plantation for grinding
the root and preparing the starch of the bitter cassava, has already
shipped the article in considerable quantities to Europe, and it has
been sold at a price which puts the profit upon sugar cultivation
completely to the blush. His agent in Glasgow writes, that any
quantity (like that already shipped) can command a ready sale at 9d.
per lb. Its use is co-extensive, or nearly so, with that of sugar. The
productive capabilities of the soil are not perhaps generally known;
nor is it necessary that, to pay the grower there, it should bring
even half that price. A sample of a ton, which was prepared at
Haagsbosch in 1841, was submitted for examination to Dr. Shier, at the
colonial laboratory, Georgetown, who admitted it to be a beautiful
specimen of starch, although it had undergone but _one_ washing. The
root from which it was made, was planted eight or nine months
previously, upon an acre of soil, which had never undergone any
preparation of ploughing, or been broken and turned up in any way. The
plants were never weeded after they had begun to spring, nor were they
tended or disturbed until they were ripe and pulled up. The expense of
planting the acre was five dollars, and reaping this crop would, I
suppose, amount to as much more, say L2 in all. The green cassava was
never weighed, but the acre yielded full