A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



' «»«A«> 



-^. 



Vol XVII. No. 418. 



BARBADOS, MAY 4. 191ts. 



Prick Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Page 



Agrioultural Iiisciiiotinu 



in Canada 142 



Ajiriciiltural Resources of 



.raiiiaica... 142 



Aket- Poison 139 



Berries. Old ami New V>7t 



Book 81ielf vn 



('acao. (^)ualities in. 

 Dfsii-fd by Manufac- 

 turers ..'. ... ... 12!l I 



t'anc Varieties. Broedini; | 



on Mendelian Lines l:!(; I 

 Cott"n Notes: — 



8ea Isl.and C'ultou 



Marl;et J 34 



Df|iartiiient News ... 134 

 Kdueati"nal Cour.ses in 

 l!ot.uiic Gardens ... 143 



Gleanings 140 



Hyacintlis. Water, Value 



of as Fertilizer ... 141 

 Insect Notes: — 



Fleas and their Control 138 ' 



Items of Lo?.il Interest 

 Jamaica Oil of Orange 



Market Reports 



Nates and Comments ... 



Palm Nuts. A Clever 

 Device to Crack 



Pe:inut Crop in the Uni- 

 ted States 



Plant Diseases: — 



Infection of Orange 

 Fruit through Bug 

 I'unctures 



Plants. Exchange of 

 Iseful ... 



Potato Butter 



Sugar Industry: — 



Palms .as a Commercial 



.Source of .Sugar 

 .Selection of Cane Cat- 

 lings before Planting 



\V,„.d ur Ciindle-Nut Oil 



AGE. 



134 

 141 



144 

 13(; 



137 

 l.SC, 



14-_' 



13'.l 

 137 



133 



l.-.--' 

 137 



Qualities in Cacao Desired by 

 Manufacturers. 



1 , , 



\yK ol the most striking developments of 

 (recent year.s in the cultivation of a partieular 

 J crop in a locality uheie no attention was 

 previously paid to it. is the cacao industry in the ( lold 

 Coast Colony. In the year isni there was offioially 

 recorded the first exportation cd' ciicao from the colony. 

 It was NO tb. in weight, valued at £4-. In 1916 the. 

 ofticial reports place the exports at 72,1(>1 tons, of the 

 value of £3,847,720. The (iold'.'oast has become in 

 fact, in the short space of twenty-6ve years, the great- 

 est producer of cacao in the world, supplying nearly 



one-quarter of the total world production of this 

 valuable foodstuff. 



The industry is almost entirely in the hands of 

 natives on small holdings, to which fact rnay be 

 attributed the low grade of the cacao which is mostly 

 shipped, as not much trouble is taken in harvesting 

 or preparing the beans in order to obtain the best 

 results, Coasei{uently the price which the product 

 fetches on the market is only very low as compared 

 with that of Trinidad or Grenada cacao. 



The large quantity of cacao, produced at low cost, 

 must however have an effect on the market in lowering 

 prices generally, and it would seem that, if cacao pro* 

 duction in the West Indies is to continue to hold its 

 place, the planters will have to strive, not so much after 

 producing quantity, for in that they will not be able 

 to compete with other sources of supply like the Gold 

 Coast, but after improvement of <(uality. 



A useful analogy may be derived from the local 

 cotton indiistty. It would be hopeless for these islands 

 to compete in the production of hjgyptian or American 

 Upland, but from specializing in a type, for which the 

 demand is relatively small but the prices high, the 

 industr}' retains, to all appearance, the prospects of 

 continued prosperity. 



By cacao of a high quality we mean the cacao 

 which is regarded as most desirable from the manu- 

 facturer's point of view. A paper published in the 

 Transactions of the Third International Congress of 

 Tropical Agriculture, which was held in London in 

 June 1914, is full of \ery valuable hints on this question, 

 from the point of view of the cocoa manufacturer. The 

 authors of the paper referred to, Messrs. X. P. Booth 

 and A. W. Knapp. o! Messrs. Cadbury Bros.. Ltd., say 

 that they believe there are many planters who 



