Cwts.
1833            942
1834            888
1835          1,663
1836          3,735
1837          2,142
1838            462
1839            402
1840            983
1841          1,870
1843          2,325

St. Lucia grows a considerable quantity of manioc; it exported of cassava flour in—­

Barrels.
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 fully a ton of starch—­equal, at 9d. per lb., to L84.