TEE AGhlOULTDRAL NEWS. 



Dbcemueb :;7, 1913- 



SEA ISLAND COTTON MAEKET. 



Th'. r-j..oro oi Messrs. Heaiv \V. Fivs; A: Co. on 

 ^ea Islaii'i cotton in the Suuthern .Srates, for the 

 week ended Xoveinber 20. 1919, is as follow-.- : — 



ISLANDS. 'J'he market was ijuiet throughout the week 

 and DO sales rep-u-te'l, wirli Factors unwilling to make any 

 concessions to sell tbeir limited oti'erings, and continued 

 fina io their asking prioes. However, ttiwards the close of 

 the week sales were made "n jirivate terms at some decline, 

 and should no better demand spring up we may succeed in 

 buying this coining week, when the "tFerings will be Urger, 

 at (lur inside ijuotations, viz. : — 



We .juote ; 



Fine to Fully Fine (a 84.'.c. to Sb\c., f.o.b. and freight. 



".EiiHi;iAS AM) Fi.oKiBAS. There continues a good 

 demand for the offerings on a basis of quotations, the buying 

 being on account of the Xorthern Mills. The holders of 

 cotton are still expectant of higher prices later on, and are 

 rather firm in tbeir views. The sales consist prim-ipally of 

 •cotton brought over from the crops of IQlT-l^ and 1918-19, 

 there being a limited supply of new crop cotton, as only 

 2,744 bales were ginned up to the 14th inst. 



We quote, viz ; — 



Average Estra Choice, Oi S.'Jc. f.o.b. and freight. 



Thtr exports from Savannah for the week have been, to 

 Northern Mills 657 b^le-" and from .lacksonville to Xorth- 

 ern .Mills 602 bales. 



RESIDUAL COTTON FIBRE. 



Two years before the war broke out, a machine was 

 devised which elfectaa complete separation of the remains of 

 the decorticated woolly cotton seed (cotton seed hulls) in the 

 United .States into theii component parts of short cotton 

 fibre and shell-remains, the latter being a much better 

 material for the manufacmre of mixed feed than the woolly 

 h'llls. The short cotton fibre is delivered by the machine 

 in so clean a condition that it yields 70 per cent, of cellulose. 

 It immediateiy found a market at good prices for the manu- 

 facture of high grade paper, e.^;plosives. vulcanized fibre, 

 etc., and practically the whole output of the factory in the 

 United States was sold for the manufacture of explosives 

 during the war. 



t,>uite recently ai. other machine has been perfected 

 which removes the residual fibres from the " wo ^lly ' seeds 

 to any desired degree without injury either to the .seed or to 

 the fibre. This fibre product is of greater purity and of 

 higher <j;iality than that separated out from the decorticated 

 htills. \.)u analysis, the yield of celliilote hss been found to 

 be as high as '"^T pi-r cent , or within a few per cent., of that 

 of r.w Ion 15 cotton. 



This ii.aterial has been pronounced by Courtaulds 

 (Limiiid) to br; .suitable for the production of their artificial 

 silk, and the Ministry of Munitions ot War, at whose instruc- 

 tions it was e.xamined last year, have certified its suitability 

 for the production of lilro cellulose p<4wders iJuib these 

 machines were worked out by a l>ri'i..'h engineer and 

 developed entirely by private Bnt-sh enterprise. 



Enormous quantities of ' woolly ' cotton seed are 

 produced within the Empire, the greater part of which is 

 now — economically .ipeaking -wa.sled The production of 

 ■woolly coiion -i-ed bids tait to increase greatly in the future, 

 arjd tiy aie-ins if ihe latt nam>.d machine these seeds can b'; 

 converted into ' crushable' seeds t'er the Britiah oil uili?, 



ih'.is laryely exteudiiii; the av-iiJiVie supplitis and producing, 

 c5neomit-intiy, considerable quantities of short cotton fibre, 

 a raw material lor pdiper making ind many other industrial 

 parp.ises. the value of which has now been established 

 commercially. 



Should the .American decorticating system come to be 

 adopted in Great Britain, this machine would be dsed for 

 reducing the quantity of fibre on the woally seeds to that 

 necessary tor efiScient decorticition. and the firstnamed 

 machine would be employed lor recovering the remainder 

 of the residual fibre from the decorticated 'seed remiins. 

 (TAe Times Trade .Supplement, ijctober 2'), 1919.) 



RATS IN THE WEST INDIES. 



Rats seem to have been a pttst in sugar-cane fields in 

 the West Indies from very early times. Sir Daniel Morris, in 

 a pamphlet, entitled The Mongoose on Sugar E.itate3 

 in the West Indies, which was published in .Jamaica in l!j82> 

 speaks of the introduction of the mongoose into that island 

 for the 'purpose of destroying the plague of rats which have 

 always, more or less, infested sugar estites and caused 

 considerable lois by their ubi(juitous depredations. As a, 

 consequence, rat catching has been an important item in 

 all sugar estate expenses, n'lt only in .Tamaica but in all 

 the West Indian islands : and for the last two hundred years 

 numerous suggestions have been made to cope with an evil 

 which, in spite of rat catchers, dogs, baits and poisons, has 

 remained as great as ever.' 



In J imaica, at that time, three kinds of rats were 

 recognized. They were the common black and brown rats of 

 Europe, and one known as the cane-piece rat. which was .said 

 to have been named by Gosse, .!///.< saciltariiwiis. 



As a means of control, the lluropeau ferret was intro- 

 duced into Jamaica, but proved to be of no use, as it sufiered 

 so severely from the attacks of the chigoe [.jigger) flea. 



In 1762, one Thomas liitlles brought over from (.'uba 

 an ant (fr»mi<a nmnivora) which came to be called after the 

 introducer, ' Tom liatfles ant,' and .strange as it may appear, 

 the Tom Kartles ant has remained to this day a firm friend to 

 the sugar planter, and a foe to all pests of rats and vermin. 



The Agua or South .\merican toad wis introduced in 

 1842 as another (^h^ck on the rats. 



The foregoing refer principally to .Jamaica, being taken 

 from the pamphlet by Morris as mentioned above ; but the 

 conditions as to rats must have been quite as bad in 

 other islands, for it is recorded that while the mongoose was 

 introiluced into .lamaica in 1S72, it was introduced into 

 Trinidad in 1870, ioid into Barbados in 1877 or 78. 



Morris gives a chapter on the rat situ;vtion in Barba- 

 dos, in which he states: 'Owing to the serious injury caused 

 by rats to canefields in Barbados, an Act was pas.^ed, entitled 

 Barb-idos Law No. 4;?9, dated the 9th .July l!:<67, for 

 encouriging the destruccion of rats ; and by force of which 

 the Treasurer of each parish was bound to paj' one penny for 

 every rat head brought to him.' .According to otiici il returns 

 the amount paid for nt heads during the years 1875 to 1879 

 iie^lusive, was f;"J.7L'G 18.*. •'!'/., and thenumber of rals thus 

 accounted for, amounted to (>.")4,4.o9. 



Ill Trinidad, the rat situation must have been abuut the 

 same as in .faniaica and Hirbado.s, for the mongoose was 

 introduced into that island before the others, and for the 

 .same purpose, i.e. the destruction or control of rats 



It is probable that if the e.vact laies were available, it 

 would be found that the introduction of the monconie into 

 Antigubk, St. Vincent, S:. Kilts, and (Jreindi :00k pk ve at 

 about the same tini'; is that inio the islAud.- already men- 

 tioned, and It is kn 'Wii that it was for tht aauie puipoae. 



