Vol. XVII. No. 415. 



THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



87 



under the auspices of the Government Agricultural Depart- 

 ment. Considering the great difficulties caused by the war, 

 a crop of 1 ,500 bales of long staple cotton is very satisfactory, 

 as it compares with 461 bales of this cotton last year, and 

 when once the cultivation of this long staple cotton has 

 been established, it is felt that the future of the cotton- 

 growing industry in Northern Nigeria will be assured. 



ucANDA. The latest reports are to the effect that the 

 cotton crop will not be so large as had been expected, and the 

 total crop is estimated at about 20,000 bales. 



COTTON EXPORTS PROM THE WEST 



INDIES. 



The following Sgures show the quantity and estimated 

 value of Sea Island cotton exported from the West Indies for 

 the quarter ended December 31, 1917: — 



Colony. Quantity, Estimated value, 



R). £. 



33 

 8,-232 

 115 

 7,561 

 nil 



130 



75 



16,146 



Total 



115,119 



*The cotton shipped from Montserrat was made up of 

 21,563 0). of lint, and 108,405 ft. of seed-cotton, equal to 

 27,107 lb. of lint, making the total lint 48,664 ft. as shown 

 above. 



tXhi.s cotton is presumed to be Sea Island, quality 

 unknown. 



In addition to the above there were exported of Marie 

 Galante cotton frDm Grenada, 274,596 ft., and from 

 St, Vincent, 44,363 ft., of the estimated values of £9,150, 

 and £3,327, respectively. 



EXPERIMENTS WITH TANNIAS IN THE 

 PHILIPPINES. 



The riiilippiiic Agriciiltniist and Forester, November 

 1917, contains an interesting article by Francisco A. Abadilla 

 on e.\periments in the cultivation of what are called in the 

 Philippines yautias and gabis, or, as we know them in the 

 West Indies, tannias <ind eddoes. The gabis or eddoes 

 {Colocasia spp.) have been planted from very ancient times 

 in the Philippines, but no care has usually been taken in 

 weeding or manuring the crop. The yautias or tannias 

 (Xaiilhosoma spp.) have been introduced comparatively 

 recently from the American tropics, and have been found 

 to do well in many pirts of the Philippines. They appear 

 also to be less susceptible to diseases which attack the gabis 

 or eddoes there, and are much more productive, and more 

 resistant to drought. 



The experiments referred to above, show that it is 

 advisable only to use the tops of the old root-stocks in 

 planting. They develop earlier and produce from 15 to 20 



per cent, more tubers in shorter time than when tubers are 

 used. 



As to fertilizers, stable manure gives the best results, 

 while the application of chemical nitrates and phosphates i.s 

 not advised. 



A method called castration is mentioned as a means of 

 increasing the production of the crop. This consists 

 in removing the .soil around the plants, and then taking up 

 the ripe tubers for use. The soil is then put back. It is 

 stated that by this method in eighteen to twenty-four 

 month.s as much as 30 tons of tubers can be harvested from 

 1 acre. 



In the cultivation of the crop in the open, the plants were 

 spaced about 3 feet apart and set from 5 to 7 inches deep. 

 The same distances and depth were observed in the experiment 

 of planting between the trees in a coco-nut grove. During the 

 first month after planting, cultivation of the soil surface once 

 a week was found necessary. During the next two months 

 this was done once a fortnight, and afterwards until the 

 time of harvest, once a month was found to be sufficient. In 

 fact the tannias planted in the coco-nut grove only needed 

 one cleaning after the third month. 



The crops were harvested at the age of seven months. 

 From the tables of returns given, the yield seems to have been 

 much larger than crops obtained from the same varieties of 

 tannias grown in the West Indies. To take as an instance the 

 variety knovrn as Rolliza, which has been grown at the Exper- 

 iment Station, Antigua, for .some years; according to the Report 

 on the Agricultural Department in that island, 1915-lG, the 

 calculated yield of tubers from that variety was (J,13Sft. 

 per acre; and the yield in the experiments in the Philippines 

 with the same variety in the open field is given as 15,644 

 kilogrammes per hectare, which is roughly equivalent to 

 13,768 ft. per acre; while as an intercrop among coco-nut 

 trees an equivalent of 11,664 ft. per acre is given as the 

 result from the same variety. In the open field the produc- 

 tion of the varieties varied from nearly 5 to more than 

 13 tons per acre. It was also demonstrated by experiment 

 that wider spacing of the plants than 3 by 3 feet led to 

 a loss per acre of from 2 to 18 per cent. Such wider 

 spacing was therefore not only unnecessary but wasteful. 



As a catch crop in a coconut plantation, promising 

 results were obtained from the tannias, none of the ten varieties 

 planted producing much less than 5 tons of root-stock per 

 acre. The production varied, according to the variety, from 

 nearly 5 to more than lii tons per acre, in spite of the fact 

 that the crop was well shaded by the coco-nut trees. In this 

 situation it was only necessary to weed and cultivate the 

 plants four times in seven months. In fact cultivation wa.-^ 

 only to insure the plants a good start, for after they had 

 out-grown the weeds, their own shade and the shade of the 

 coconuts kept the weeds down. Of course such inter- 

 cropping tends to impoverish the soil, and therefore it may 

 be advisable to apply fertilizers to the coco-nut trees more 

 liberally than if no such catch crop is grown. It is recom 

 mended that if a coco-nut grove is to be thus intercropped 

 with tannias, the cultivation should only be practised when 

 the trees are young. 



In conclusion it may he noticed that in these experi- 

 ments the crops were reaped after seven months' growth, and 

 it is considered that even better results would have been 

 obtainable had the plants been given more time to mature, 

 as tannias really recjuire from eight to twelve months to 

 attain their full maturity. It is also pointed out that 

 uniform growth, and good results are obtained by using 

 only the upper part of the mother root-stock for planting. 



