Negro Yeomen How harvests vary as between the tropical and
temperate climes! But there are analogies. Yeoman service is the best
service all the world over. In Jamaica, for example, the negroes, or for that matter the West Indians, are of the better type and live the happier life where that which we call the family farm is in being ; and the phrase may stand, though in that land of promiscuity the family as such is very rare. The smallholders can virtually live on the produce of some two or three acres. Sweet potatoes, yams, bananas and a little grain with a few hens and perhaps some stock make the cultivators almost self-supporting, and when more money is needed there is plenty of work to be had in coffee or sugar fields. Such holdings are being multiplied ; general success depends chiefly on the mind and mood of the cultivator. It is the opinion of one of the chief agriculturists on the Commission now looking into West Indian affairs that success in reform will depend principally on the one question whether the negro has the heart of a farmer. He is apt to prefer such a harvest as the banana or coconut for which you wait with folded hands. His ideal is a market garden, where " Nectarine and, curious peach Into my hands themselves do reach."
It is remarkable that everyone who desires a gardener seeks out not a West African but an East Indian ; only the China- man perhaps can rival the Indian in the art and craft of the potager. It is surprising for one who has not studied the subject to discover that in some islands the Indian is as numerous almost as the African. The indentured labourer is as important as the descendant of the emancipated slave. The vital questions stand : will the negro cultivate and will he maintain the fertility of his acres?
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