We all know what would be thought of an European farmer who thus staked his capital on one venture.

'He is a bad farmer,' says the proverb, 'who does not stand on four legs, and, if he can, on five.' If his wheat fails, he has his barley--if his barley, he has his sheep--if his sheep, he has his fatting oxen.

The Provencal, the model farmer, can retreat on his almonds if his mulberries fail; on his olives, if his vines fail; on his maize, if his wheat fails.

The West Indian might have had--the Cuban has--his tobacco; his indigo too; his coffee, or--as in Trinidad--his cacao and his arrowroot; and half a dozen crops more: indeed, had his intellect--and he had intellect in plenty--been diverted from the fatal fixed idea of making money as fast as possible by sugar, he might have ere now discovered in America, or imported from the East, plants for cultivation far more valuable than that Bread-fruit tree, of which such high hopes were once entertained, as a food for the Negro.

As it was, his very green crops were neglected, till, in some islands at least, he could not feed his cattle and mules with certainty; while the sugar-cane, to which everything else had been sacrificed, proved sometimes, indeed, a valuable servant: but too often a tyrannous and capricious master.
But those days are past; and better ones have dawned, with better education, and a wider knowledge of the world and of science.