Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/433

] of the natives, by obliging them to abandon, so to speak, every sort of cultivation, except those of cloves and nutmegs.

The Dutch also take care to limit the cultivation of spices, in order that the quantity produced may not much exceed the ordinary demand. Those measures, though destructive of all activity, are, however, well suited to the supine disposition of those people.

Many farinaceous roots, and a variety of trees, afford them abundant supplies of food, almost without cultivation; as if nature had thus intended to compensate man, for the inactivity to which she seems to have condemned him, in so sultry a climate.

Engrafting would doubtless contribute to improve the various fruits produced in this island; but no person, even among the Europeans, has yet succeeded in that experiment; for they have always allowed the joint to dry, before the circulation of the sap was fairly established between the stock and the scion. It would, however, have been easy to prevent that accident by keeping the part in a suitable state of moisture, till the junction was fairly formed.

The European kinds of pulse are but little adapted to the heat of the climate.

A very small banana, called pisang radja, is looked