4i 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



January 30, 1904. 



GLEANINGS. 



A ton of selected Sea Island cotton seed lias been 

 ordered through the Imjierial Department of Agriculture for 

 use in Jamaica during the next iplanting season. 



Among the exports from British Guiana for the period 

 January I, 1904 to January 12, 1904, are mentioned 

 502.', tons of mola.scuit. 



An old time distich, reminiscent of the period when 

 Barbados largelj- produced cotton, still survives amongst the 

 l^easantry : — 



' I live in the thickets : I live very well, 

 I'pon guinea corn, coco and cotton to sell.' 



The Board of I'rade Joiini'd referriiig to the exports of 

 Grenada, says : ' Cotton and cotton seed are at present 

 exclusively the product of Carriacou, the principal dependency 

 of Grenada. In 1902, the actual export was 2,212 cwt. of 

 raw cotton, and 4,")3G cwt. of cotton seed, valued at £4,069.' 



Committee of the 



At a meeting of the Managing v 

 St. Lucia Agricultural Society on December 30, Sir Daniel 



could be 



Morris i)ronused, if the necessary arrangements could 

 carried out, to attend a Conference of landowners and planters 

 at Castries on Tuesday, February 23, to discuss the prospects 

 of the cotton industrj-. 



Mr. A. H. Clark, a graduate of Harvard University, is 

 on a visit to the Lesser Antilles for the pui-po.se of making- 

 collections of fossils and mannnals. Mr. Clark is specially 

 interested in bird life and he has already made investigations 

 likely to be of value from the scientific as well as the 

 agricultural point of view. 



The Journal of the Nm: York llotanical Garden for 

 November 1903 contains an interesting report by Professor 

 F. E. Lloyd on a ' Botanical expedition to the island of 

 Dominica, British ^^'est Indies.' Professor Lloyd acknowl- 

 edges his indebtedness for valuable suggestions and 

 assistance received from Jlr. J. Jones, the Curator of the 

 Botanic Station, and states that ' Roseau can boast of a very 

 delightful and useful Botanic Station.' 



The Annual lifjioit of the Smith^on'tan Institute for 

 1902, which has just been issued, contains two articles on 

 the volcanic eruptions in St. A'incent and Martinique. One 

 of these is the preliminary report of Drs. Tempest Anderson 

 and J. S. Flett, reprinted from the I'roceeilinijs of the 

 Roml Society, while tl:e second is by J. C. Russell, of the 

 United States National Geographical Society Expedition to 

 the West Indies. At the conclusion of the latter paper, 

 there is jirinted a useful bibliography of magazine articles, 

 reports, etc., concerning these eruptions. 



A Prize List of the Demerara County Show 1904, to be 

 lield at Eve Leary ISarracks on February 26 next, has been 

 forwarded to this Office tlirough the courtesy of Mr. T. S. 

 Hargreaves, the Secretary of the Show Connnittee. We 

 notice that an extra prize is offered by his Excellency the 

 Governor for -50 It), of beef corned in the colony, and also one, 

 offered by Mrs. Maccpiarrie, fur the best conditimied, groomed 

 and harnessed donkej'. 



We learn from the Jamaica Daili/ Tehiira^ih of January 

 12 that there is every possibility of an industry in cassava 

 starch being worked U[p in that colony. A factory has been 

 erected and the proprietor (Mr. J. W. .Middleton) is about to 

 make a trial shii>ment of 1 ton to England. A .sample of 

 starch from this factory was recently jironounced bv 

 ^[r. Cousins to be ' free from acid and all impurities". 



The cultivation of bees is rapidly becoming a national 

 industry in America. It is estimated that 300,000 jieople 

 are more or less interested and engaged in bee culture. 

 Thirty years ago the output of honey was estimated at 

 ]. '3,000,000 11). : its value last year is estimated by the 

 Government at £4,000,000. As is .so often the case with 

 American industries, a pleasing feature of bee-keeping is the 

 large number of small farmers who follow it. {Indian 

 I'lantinq and Gardening, November 2!^, 1903.) 



Another very wise precaution to [irevent cocoa-nut 

 palms being up-rooted by wind is to plant the seed-nuts at 

 the bottom of holes, 3 feet deep. The holes so dug are not 

 filled up by hand, seeing that the light sandy soil fills up the 

 hole in course of time. The roots of iialms planted in this 

 manner are naturally deeper and better covered than are 

 those of trees grown from seeds embedded in the usual 

 manner, inune<liately below the .surface. (The Cohmiid 

 Repi'Vt 'in the Coenx- Keeling Islands for 1903.) 



Mr. William M. Smith, Acting Agricultural Instructor 

 at Grenada, writes : ' The planters here complain of the 

 great increase of the " Brown Rot '' fungus during the past 

 year. They have lost sight of the fact that, although the 

 burying and burning of the iiod shells in the field is 

 ex[iensive, the saving of the cacao trees from the di.sease- 

 more than compensates for the expense incurred in this way.' 



A circular (No. 52) recently issued by the Office of 

 Experiment Stations of the United States Department of 

 Agriculture gives a list of 'A few good books and bulletins 

 on nature study, school gardening and elementary agriculture 

 for common schools.' The aim of the circular is to recom- 

 mend a few books that are likely to be useful to teachers 

 ar.d pupils. It is also suggested that the books mentioned 

 might serve as a nucleus for a public .school agricultural 

 library. 



Potatos meant to be used for planting reipiire vastly 

 more careful treatment than potatos meant only to be eaten. 

 Sometimes potatos are raised from the beginning, in a .special 

 field with special treatment of the soil, s[>ecial cultivation, and 

 altogether special attention, to be sold for seed purposes; but 

 mostly such high cultivation is given nowadays to all farm 

 crops, that an ordinary field is gone tlircvugh, and the finest 

 and healthiest-appearing plants are chosen, and tho.se that 

 yield jirolifically of good sized potato.s, not necessarily the 

 largest, but the best merchantable yield, are taken, and the 

 soundest potatos chosen from these as 'seed.' (Journal of 

 the Jamaica Agricultural Societp, December 1903.) 



