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[Page 24]
Plants brought from the East Indies, With every variety of Soil, it possesses a Climate as similar to that of the Eastern Islands and Malabar Coast as needs be desired. Its Inhabitants are more expert in every Species of Plantation Culture and have been more accustomed to translate Exotick Plants, than any of our Colonists. This they have frequently done from the Brazils, Surinam and the Spanish Main, and many useful ones from these places they have already naturallized in their Island. Being more opulent also and more powerful in their Industry, a more perfect Trial may be expected in that Island of a translated Plant than in any other of our West India Settlement. There are some who will probably have doubts whether East India Plants brought to Jamaica from a Country so remote, and which are no where Natives of the Western World, will succeed in that Island as we seem to expect. To obviate which I shall here subjoin the following remarks.
4.
The Vegetables of the East Indies are so different from those of Europe that they are almost like those of another World. There are but few European Plants which belong to the West Indies and we may say there are scarce any which belong to the East. The famous Herman made a large Collection of the Plants of Ceylon amounting to 657 Species, But of this great number there are but two Europeans. Nor can all Europe claim a single Species of the 1000 collected by Rumphius in the Molaccas. Such a difference is to be expected, not from the distance but from the disparity of Climate between Europe and the Indies. For
Between the Equatorial parts of Asia and America, the more remote from each other, we find no such difference. The Plants of these Regions