protection; such for instance as the coffee tree: it is indeed sufficiently firm in the ground, but it has only one large tap root, which goes straight downwards; and its lateral roots are so small as to afford no shelter against rain. So again, the roots of the cotton shrub run too near the surface of the earth to prevent the access of rain, and are neither suf ficiently permanent, nor firm enough to resist the agitation by the usual winds. The same observation will be found true with respect to cacao, plantains, maize, tobacco, indigo, and many other species of trees and plants.

Trees or plants of the first description always suffer more or less in lands infested with these ants; whereas those of the latter never do. Hence we may fairly conclude, that the mischief done by these insects is occasioned only by their lodging and making their nests about the roots of particular trees or plants. Thus the roots of the sugar-canes are somehow or other so much injured by them, as to be incapable of performing their office of supplying due nourishment to the plants, which, therefore become sickly and stinted, and consequently do not afford juices fit for making sugar in either tolerable quantity or quality.

That these ants do not feed on any part of the canes or trees affected seems very clear, for no loss of substance in either the one or the other has ever been observed; nor have they ever been scen carrying off vegetable substances of any

sort.

On the contrary, there is the greatest presumption that these ants are carnivorous, and feed entirely on animal substances; for if a dead insect, or animal food of any sort, was laid in their way, it was immediately carried off. It was found almost impossible to preserve cold victuals from them. The largest carcases, as soon as they began to beVol. II.

12

come putrid, so as that they could separate the parts, soon disappeared. Negroes with sores had difficulty to keep the ants from the edges of them. They destroyed all other vermin, rats in particular, of which they cleared every plantation they came upon, which they probably effected by attacking their young. It was found that poultry or other small stock, could be raised only with the greatest difficulty, and the eyes, nose, and other emunctories of the bodies of dying or dead animals were instantly covered with these

ants.

From what has been said it appears, that a dry situation, so as to exclude the ordinary rains from their nests or cells, appropriated for the reception of their eggs or young brood, is absolutely necessary; but that these situations, however well calculated for the usual weather, could not afford this protection from rain during the hurricane, may be easily conceived.

When, by the violence of the tempest heavy pieces of artillery were removed from their places, and houses and sugar works levelled with the ground, there can be no doubt that trees, and every thing growing above ground, must have greatly suffered. This was the case. Great numbers of trees and plants (which commonly resist the ordinary winds) were torn out by the roots. The canes were universally either lodged, or twisted about as if by a whirlwind, or torn out of the ground altogether. In the latter case, the breeding ants, with their progeny, must have been exposed to inevitable destruction from the deluge of rain which fell at the same time. The number of canes, however, thus torn out of the ground, could not have been adequate to the sudden diminution of the sugar ants; but it is easy to conceive, that the roots of canes, which remained on the ground, and the earth about them, were so agitated and shaken, and at the same time the ants' nests were so bro

ken open or injured by the violence of the wind, as to admit the torrents of rain accompanying it. 1 apprehend therefore, that the principal destruction of these ants must have been thus effected.

It must not however be denied, that though nature, for a time, may permit a particular species of animal to become. so disproportionably numerous as to endanger some other parts of her works, she herself will, in due time, put a check upon the too great increase; and that is often done by an increase of some other animal inimical to the former destroyers. In the present case, however, nothing of that sort appeared; therefore, when a plain natural cause, obvious to our senses, occurred, by which we can account for the amazing and sudden decrease of those ruinous insects, it is unnecessary to recur to other possible causes too minute for our investigation.

All I have said on this subject would certainly be of little or no consequence, did it not lead to the true method of cultivating the sugar-cane on lands infested with those destructive insects; in which point of view, however, it be comes important.

If then the above doctrine be just, it follows, that the whole of our attention must be turned to the destruction of the nests of these ants, and consequently the breeding ants with their eggs or young brood.

In order to effect this, all trees and fences, under the roots of which these ants commonly take their residence, should first be grubbed out; particularly lime or lemon fences, which are very com non in Grenada, and which generally suffered from the ants before the canes appeared in the least injured; after which the canes should be stumped out with care, and the stools bu nt as soon as possible, together with

the field trash, (or the dried leaves and tops of the canes), in order to prevent the ants from making their escape to new quarters. The best way of doing this, I apprehend, will be to gather the field trash together in considerable heaps, and to throw the stools as soon as dug out of the ground into them, and immediately apply fire. By this means multitudes must be destroyed; for the field trash, when dry, burns with great rapidity. The land should then be ploughed, or hoe-ploughed, twice (but at least once) in the wettest season of the year, in order to admit the rains, before it is hoed for planting the cane; by these means these insects, I apprehend, will be so much reduced in number, as at least to secure a good plant cane.

But it is the custom in most of the West India islands to permit the canes to ratoon; that is, after the canes have once been cut down for the purpose of making sugar, they are suffered to grow up again without replanting; and this generally for three or four years, but sometimes for ten, fif teen, or twenty. In this mode of culture the stools become larger every year, so as to grow out of the ground to a considerable height, and by that means afford more and more shelter to the ants' nests; therefore for two or three successive crops the canes should be replanted yearly, so as not only to afford as little cover as possible for the ants' nests, but continually to disturb such ants as may have escaped, in the business of propagating their species.

That considerable expense and labour will attend putting this method into execution there is no doubt. An expensive cure, however, is better than none; but from the general principles of agriculture, I am of opinion, that the planter will be amply repaid for his trouble by the goodness of his crops, in consequence of the superior tilth the land will receive in the proposed method.

CHAPTER III.

ST. VINCENT AND ITS DEPENDENCIES,

AND

DOMINICA.

HE civil history of these islands may be com

TH

prised in a narrow compass; for the sovereignty of them having been long an object of dispute between the crowns of Great Britain and France, the rightful possessors, the Charaibes, derived that security from the reciprocal envy and avarice of the contending parties, which they might have expected in vain from their justice and humanity. As both St. Vincent and Dominica were included, with many other islands, in the earl of Carlisle's patent, it is not wonderful that attempts were made, at different times, to bring them under the English dominion. These attempts the French constantly opposed, with design, it was urged, secretly, and surreptitiously to occupy the islands themselves; and their conduct towards the Charaibes on other occasions seems to justify the suggestion.