T-7-7 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



Au(;usT 2, 1902. 



POULTRY. 



Jlr. Barclay, tlie Sccivtary of the Jamaica Agri- 

 rultiiral Huciety, has kindly pruiiiised a series of 

 short articles on poultry, written especially for the 

 Ai/iictdtural Kew.i. His notes will deal with the 

 general usefulness of poultry, the various breeds, hous- 

 ing, feeding, etc., and will, tiu-oughout, be written with 

 a view to the sj>ecial retpiirenients and circumstances 

 of keepers of poultry, on a small seah', in the West 

 Indies : — 



IMPORTANCE OF POULTIIV. 



In almost every country in the world, tlie lien is 

 considered an indisjiensable adjunct to the agriculturist ; and 

 in many countries like Ireland, France, Germany, Belgium, 

 and Denmark, she is one of the l)est profit-making items of 

 the cottager as well as of the farmer. In the West Indies 

 ■we are ajjt to overlook, if not actually despise, the imjior- 

 tauce of a poultry industry to the country. It may not lie 

 that the West Indies will ever have an export trade in egg.s, 

 such as other British ('clonics with less favuundile climates 

 have, — Canada and South Australia, for instance ; hut eggs 

 and fowls are staple articles of diet, and lieing home-raised, 

 the more they are in use, the better for these islands. 

 Eggs are indeed a cheap and luitritious food, ami, taking 

 into account the amount of actual food-stuff contained in an 

 egg and whieli may iirinciiially be elaborated from seeds and 

 grubs and waste products picked i\[> from the land, there is 

 nothing cheajier. It is just as important to save outlay for 

 importation of food-stutt's as to get returns from tlie exiiorta- 

 tiou of our i>roducts. A free con.sumption of home-laid eggs 

 and hiruse-raised fowls is innneasuralily better than tinneil 

 and piikled meats which are of less nutritive value. 



USEFULNKSS OF POUI.TI'.V. 



Coultry are e.xccedinglj' useful, first for the value of 

 their eggs, which if not sold can be used at home ; secondly, 

 their flesh is the stand-by of the good and econonucal 

 country housewife. If housed at night, as they should be, 

 their drojipings are vahu- to the extent of .£,'■'> per ton as 

 manure, and if mixed with five to ten times its weight i)f 

 earth as it should be, twenty hens will yield about one ton 

 of rich manure in a year. They eat up countless nundiers of 

 insects, slugs, worms, etc., that nught cause much damage to 

 croji.s, and in a cattle-pen they delight to go among the cows 

 and pick off the bloated ticks from the animals. Turkeys 

 are especially useful in a pasture for this pui'iiose. Thus, at 

 the same time the fowls are clearing the land of pernicioiis 

 insects and other (lest.s, they are also feeding themselves, and 

 as other food reijuired can be grown in most districts in odd 

 corners of a property with but little outlay, it nnght soon 

 liecome a fact that the keeping of poultry, if done .systemati- 

 cally as bee-keeping has been entered upon in .Jamaica, and 

 other i.sland.s, or loiiked after as you would look after Mmr 

 cultivation, would become a very profitable item on 

 a plantation, and more especially to the small cultivator. 

 The hen will respond here in the West Indies to care 



and attention just as she has responded in the United 

 .States, France, Denmark, and other countries where she is 

 responsililo for as big figures as any other item of commerce, or 

 agricultural industry. She may, standing alone, be a humlile 

 item and worth only about '2s. G</., but she and her kind 

 were responsible for two billion twenty five-million eight 

 hundred thoii.sand eggs imported into Great Britain from 

 foreign [producers last year, and five-and-a-half nullion 

 jwunds sterling were jiaid for these eggs to — Itussia, 

 i;l.I09,.o:?:5 : Germany, £1,100,719: Denmark, £^J2:\r>rA : 

 France, £^<()8, 12.'} ; Belgium, i;7.'>.'>,+-5.'> : and various other 

 countries £7-")0,000 lietween them. So that all these countries 

 arc exceedingly indebted to the hen for the receiiit of so 

 much .solid British cash, and Britain is as much indebted for 

 the eggs, without which, a breakfast table there would seem 

 blank. The American hen, too, is a diligent earner and 

 producer of wealth, as the amount realized for eggs and fowls 

 in the United States in one year amounts to the huge sum of 

 .$290,000,000, which is far greater than all the silver and gold 

 produced from all the nnnes in the United States, — greater 

 than the value of the sheep industry, the cattle industry, the 

 wheat crfij), cotton crop, everything, exceiit the value of all 

 the horses which amounts to i?500, 140. ISO. The jiroduction 

 of eggs in the United States, all consumed at home, amounts 

 to 9,iSr>G,(J74,92L'. There are no figures available for the 

 West Indies, but 1 make a conservative estimate, that there 

 are two nullious of feathered stock in Jamaica ; that one 

 hundred million of eggs are produced jearh, and that the 

 market value of these, at an average of three farthings 

 each, amounts to £312,-500, and the value of the fowls, at 

 an average jirice of 2."'. each (of course, turkeys, ducks, 

 geese, and guinea fowls average far more), amounts to 

 £200,000 - making a total value to the island of iioultry 

 jiroducts of over £500,000. Tlie value of horse-stock in 

 Jamaica is £IC0,2SO, and of cattle £007,79"). 



BEE-KEEPING. 



Stingless Bees. 



In the Aiiriciill nnil Xiii$ of May 21, (|i. tO) attention 

 was drawn to the fact that stingless bees were not unconunon 

 in the West Indies, and that a colony was to be .seen in the 

 Dominica Botanic Station. The native bee of Teliago is also 

 rc|iorted to be stingless. l'\)Ur colonies, of two species, which 

 were caught in the island are now to be seen working at the 

 ISotanic Stution. .\s to the prospects of the bee-industry in 

 Tobago, the Curator of lli..- I'.otanic Stati.'U writes: 

 ' Logwiiod ami other homy plants wliirli arc an important 

 element in bee culture occur generally distributed through- 

 out the island, and with the introduction of Italian (juecu 

 bee.s the industry .should piove an important one' 



Lizards and Bees. 



Mr. W. X. Sands, the Curator, ic|iiii-ts an interesting 

 ol)seivation made at the Botanic .Station Apiaiy at Antigua 

 in regard to lizards and bees, which seems to indicate that 

 lizards eat the drone bees in preference to workers lu 

 several instances it wa.s observed that as .soon as a drone 

 alighted on the entrance board of the hive, even among a 

 large nundier of worker-bees, he was snapped U]. by the 

 lizards, 'flie drone, it nnght be remarked, is without a sting. 

 This discrimination on the [lart of the lizanl is beneficial to 

 the Ai>iary. Whether Queen bees will not also be killed' 13 a, 

 matter for further observation. ,-. .-■.^;.c ■'-'■ 



