manual labor.  An ordinary amount of judgment being exercised in determining the proper period of ripeness of the roots, and in selecting seasons when the weather is usually most suitable for conducting the process of manufacture, it does not appear that any unusual difficulty would have to be encountered by growers or manufacturers, unless as regards the obtaining of a sufficient supply of good water; for that is essential to the production of good starch.

The creek water of the colony is generally too brown, and the trench water too muddy, and contains often too much salt to produce starches of the finest color, hence recourse would require to be had to rain water, or Artesian water.  The first is remarkably pure, and it certainly does not appear that were sufficiently capacious reservoirs built, or ponds dug, and protected from infiltration by the usual well-known means, there would be great difficulty in getting a sufficient supply of rain water.  It is done in Bermuda, and why not here?  On the other hand, almost all the Artesian wells in the colony contain a large quantity of oxide of iron held in solution by carbonic acid, and which separates as an ochrey deposit on free exposure to the air.  Were this water used in the starch process, it would certainly injure the color materially; but by a chemical process, exceedingly simple, inexpensive, and easy of application, it is possible to purify the Artesian water, and render it almost as fit as rain water for the purpose of manufacturing starch.

In some of the other colonies a great deal of the best starch is produced by the holders of small lots of land, and many parts of the labor being light, and suited for women and children, it is one of the most desirable cultivations for small holders, and would be very beneficial for Demerara, where the lands of the peasantry too generally lie in a state of utter neglect; yet small holders could not be expected to be able to compete with those who should grow starch on the large scale, and prepare it with the best machinery.

Cassava meal, plantain meal, &c., as articles of export.—­It may soon become an important question whether the plantain, or some of the edible roots grown in the tropics, might not be sent to Europe in a fresh state as a substitute for the potato.  Many of them, the buck yam and the cassava, for instance, ought to be used when fresh dug, for every day they are out of the ground they deteriorate.  This, however, is not so much the case with some of the larger yams.  It is worth trying whether the finer sorts that deteriorate by keeping, might not, after being sliced and dried in the sun, become articles of export, either in that state or when ground to meal.  For this purpose the bitter cassava, the plantain, and the buck yam are the most promising.