I think situations might be found on the island, where cotton and indigo will thrive:  of the latter, there are two trees, both which are very large and fine, but the ant destroys the blossom as fast as it flowers.  Rice has been sown twice, viz. once each year, but the south-east winds blighted a great part of it:  that which escaped the blight, yielded a great increase.  The quantity of ground cleared and in cultivation on the 13th of March, 1790, was thirty acres belonging to the crown, and about eighteen acres cleared by free people and convicts, for their gardens.

It was my intention to put as many labourers as could be spared from other necessary work, to clear ground for cultivation; and I had reason to believe that I should have had from fifty to seventy acres sown with grain by the end of October:  I purposed to continue clearing ground in Arthur’s Vale, and on the hill round it, in order to have all the cultivated lands belonging to the public as much connected together as possible; this would have answered much better for the growth of wheat, Indian corn, or barley, than their being sown in confined situations; which experience had shown were not at all productive:  the parroquets and other birds would not have destroyed so much of the grain before it was got in, and it might be much better guarded from thieves than if the cultivated grounds were dispersed in different parts of the island:  another very material reason for clearing all the ground in this particular situation was, that the barn was situated in the center of the vale.

I proposed building a strong log store-house at Cascade-Bay, and making the landing place there more easy of access; which, from the increased number of the inhabitants on the island, was now become absolutely necessary; especially as landing there is much oftener practicable than in Sydney-Bay:  indeed, I should have got this business done, but that it would have been a great hindrance to cultivation, which I ever thought was the principal object to attend to.  The other buildings which I meant to erect, were barracks for the soldiers, of 54 feet long by 16 feet wide; a granary, 36 feet long by 20 feet wide, and a store-house, 60 feet long by 24 feet wide; all which, I hoped, would have been completed by the ensuing December.

Respecting the flax, although we made repeated trials, yet, having no person conversant in the preparation of it, I found it could not at present be brought to an useful state:  but I may venture to say, that if proper flax-dressers could be sent to New Zealand, to observe their method of manufacturing it, they might render it a valuable commodity, both to furnish the inhabitants with cloathing, and for other purposes.

It was my intention to have built an house and a shed on Phillip-Island, and, after landing three or four months water on it, to have sent six convicts with a boat to catch and cure fish; this would have been a great resource for Norfolk-Island; but the fish must have been cured from April to September, on account of the fly.