Vol. III. No. 70. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



407 



XVI. The manufacture of Cocoa-nut oil in the West 

 Indies. (Mr. W. Greig.) 



XVII. The occurrence of Anthrax and the best niean.s 

 of controlling it. (Dr. C. W. ]?ranch and Mr. H. A. Ballou.) 



XVIII." The Hairy or Woolless Sheep of the West 

 Indies. (Mr. W. R. Butten.sliaw, M.A., B.Sc.) 



XIX. The Pre.sent Position of Rice Cultivation in 

 the West Indies. 



XX. The influence of the soil on the special qualities 

 of Agricultural Produce. (Mr. J. H. Hart, F.L.S.) 



XXI. Are the special qualities posse.ssed by individual 

 plants sufficiently regarded ? (Mr. .7. H. Hart, F.L.S.) 



XXII. Butter-makinc; at Trinidad — with exhibits. 

 (Mr. C. W. Meaden.) 



EDUCATIONAL SUBJECTS. 



XXIII. The Results of efforts to introduce the teach- 

 ing of the principles of Agricultural Science into the Colleges 

 and Schools in the West Indies. (Brief statements and 

 discussion.) 



XXIV. School Gardens and School Shows in Trinidad. 

 (Mr. J. H. CoUens, Inspector of Schools.) 



XXV. Higher Agricultural Education at Trinidad. 

 (Professor P. Carmody, F.I.C., F.C.S.) 



Visits and Excursions. 



The members of the Trinidad Agricultural Society 

 are arranging for excursions to places of interest. The 

 following are amongst the probable arrangements in 

 regard to visits and excursions : — 



Wednesday, January Jf, ^.30 /)./;;. — Reception by Lady 

 Jackson at Government House and visit to the Royal 

 Botanic Gardens. 



Thursday, January 5, Jf.SO to G p.m. — Visit to the 

 St. Clair Experiment Station ; Mr. J. H. Hart, F.L.S., will 

 meet visitors and show the various objects of interest. 



Saturday, January 7. — A day's excursion to the L'sine 

 St. Madeleine, via San Fernando, proceeding afterwards to 

 Princes' Town to lunch. 



Monday, January 9. — Afternoon visit to Mr. Hoadley's 

 cacao estate at Chaguanas to inspect a new steam -drying 

 plant for cacao : also a factory for preparing concentrated 

 lime juice and di.stilled oil. 



Tuesday, January 10. — Probable all-day excursion by 

 steamer to the Pitch Lake at La Brea. 



Wednesday, January 11. — Afternoon visit to the 

 Government Stock Farm at Valsayn. The annual sale of 

 stock is fixed for this date. Catalogues of the sale may be 

 obtained on application to the Secretaries of the Conference. 



Thursday, January 12. — Afternoon visit to the fine 

 «acao estate of Messrs. Borde Bros, at La Horqueta, and, if 

 time permits, on to the newly opened district of Sangre 

 "CJrande. The members of the Agricultural Society have 

 kindly undertaken all arrangements for the entertainment of 

 Representatives at the excursions on January 7, 10 and 12. 



Bee Keeping in Bosnia. His Majesty's Consul- 



General at Serajevo reports : ' Great attention is being paid to 

 the keeping of bees in this country, which promises to be 

 very lucrative. Under the auspices of the GoTernment an 

 association, which already numbers 2,500 members, has been 

 formed for the promotion of this industry, to which the 

 Government contributea 4,000 kr. (£167) annually. 

 There are already 6,000 hives on the moat approved modern 

 jjrinciples, and the honej produced is excellent.' 



AFRICAN HAIRY SHEEP. 



The following interesting note on African hairy 

 sheep, also known as Barbados woolless sheep, by 

 Mr. K Lydekker, F.R.S., appeared in The Field of 

 October 8 : — 



Those interested in the origin of our domesticated 

 breeds of sheep should pay a visit to the Natural History 

 Museum to inspect a very remarkable type which has just 

 been added to the collection in the North Hall. The 

 specimen in question is a ram of the red, hairy breed of 

 sheep native to the West Coast of Africa, whence it has been 

 exported to Barbados, the birthplace of the present example. 

 Although an adult ram, the museum specimen has no signs 

 of horns, but I believe these appendages are developed, in 

 some instances at any rate, in the original African breed. 

 The most striking features of the Barbados ram (which by 

 the way, was presented to the museum by the Commissioner 

 of Agriculture for the AYest Indies) are, firstly, the uniformly 

 foxy-red colour of the coat, and, secondly, the short and 

 hairy nature of the latter, which displays no tendency to 

 woolliness, and is almost exactly similar to the summer coat 

 of the wild mufflon or oorial. The head is, in fact, almost 

 identical in form and general appearence with that of 

 a female of one of those two species, and thus quite different 

 from the long and slender head of the African wild sheep or 

 oodad, which has been regarded by some as the ancestral 

 stock of the domesticated breeds. The tail, too, is much 

 shorter than in European domesticated sheep, not reaching 

 to within a considerable distance of the hocks. From the 

 uniform colour of the coat it would seem probable that the 

 breed is more nearly related to the oorial than to the mufflon, 

 and if the former were originally domesticated in Persia, it 

 might well have been introduced into Africa by way of Syria. 

 Be that as it may, it seems most likely that in the West 

 African breed we have the earlier stock of the more specialized 

 woolly breeds of Europe. An instructive case has just 

 been arranged in the museum to exhibit some of the most 

 extreme types of domesticated sheep. The exhibits include 

 the above-mentioned hairy breed, the fat-rumped Hedjaz 

 sheep, the four-horned African, the spiral-horned Wallachiau, 

 the Scc)tch mountain, the Leicester, and the Shropshire 

 breeds. 



It may be mentioned that at the request of the 

 Chief of the Bureau of Animal Industry, a number of 

 these sheep were procured by the Imperial Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture for the United States Department 

 of Agriculture and shipped from Barbados to New York 

 in July last. The animals arrived in excellent con- 

 dition and have since been reported to be doing well 

 in Tennessee. As mentioned elsewhere in this issue, 

 this breed of sheep will form the subject of a discussion 

 at the forthcoming West Indian Agricultural Con- 

 ference at Trinidad. 



DEPARTMENT NEWS. 



Mr. Joseph Jones, Curator of the Botanic Station 

 at Dominica, who has been on leave of absence since 

 June 2, returned to the West Indies in R. M. S. 

 ' Atrato ' and resumed his duties on December 6. 



Mr. J. C. Moore, Agricultural Superintendent at 

 St. Lucia, also returned in the same steamer and 

 resumed his duties on December 6. 



