There are no phases of
agricultural enterprise devoid of toil, save perhaps the growing of
vanilla, the very poetry of the oldest of pursuits, in which one has to
aid and abet in the loves and in the marriage of flowers. But vanilla
production is not one of the profitable branches of agriculture here yet.
We have to deal only with things that are at present practicable.
Whether the settler grows maize, or fruit or coffee, or as a collateral
exercise of industry gets log timber, or raises pigs or poultry, the life
has no great variations. If he farms sugar-cane, being resident within the
zone of influence of a mill, he belongs to a different order--an order
with which it is not intended to deal. My purpose refers only to men who
do not employ labour, who have to depend almost solely upon their own hard
hands. The conditions upon which the land is acquired demand personal
residence during a period of five years and the erection of permanent
improvements, such as fencing, thereon, and there are not many who take
up a selection who are in the position to pay wages. The selector must do
the clearing, and the preparation of the soil for whatever crop in his
experience or the experience of others is considered the most
remunerative.
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