A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XII. No. 304. 



BARBADOS. DECEMBER 20. 1913. 



Price Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Agricultural T'.mks 401 



Agriculture, Tr(ii)ical, Proli- 

 kiii>. Awaiting Solution ! 



in 408 1 



Britain's Imports of West ! 

 Iiulian Fruits in lttl2... 407 ! 



Cm:w K-tate Valuation... 40'.) 



Cotton Note.s:— 



Sea Island Cotton Orow- 

 iiiu Conij>etition f^r Small 

 Holders in St. Vincent 406 ' 

 West Indian Cotton ... 406 



Departmental Reports ... 405 



Fig-tree, A Little-knuwn 407 



Fungus Notes : — 

 Ceylon Legisl-ition Against 

 riant Pestjand Diseases 414 1 



Gleanings 412 i 



Gold Coast. 1912 409 



Insect Notes :— 



Fruit Flies 410 



Legislation in Regard to 

 Plant Importation ■■■ 410 



PA(iE. 



iMal de Caderas 411 



Market Reports 410 



Notes and Comments ... 4<I8 

 Ostrich Eggs, Testing ... 411 

 Ostriches, Cruelty to ... 411 



Raitteisen System. Ditiicul- 

 ties of in England ... 413 



Soil, Non-available Watei* 

 in 415 



Students' Corner 413 



Sugar Industry: — 



A Possil pie Effect of the 

 New American Tariff on 

 tlie World's Sugar Indus- 

 tries 404 



Ti.Us, Destruction of: A 

 New Idea 409 



West Indies and Agricid- 

 tural Credit ... 408 



•Wood-oil' Trees in the West 

 Indies 403 



Agricultural Banks. 



HERK will appear in the forthcoming issue 

 if the We>it Indian Bidlftin,a.pa.per dealing 

 ,\vith agricultural banks. It has been the 

 aim of the writer of this paper to treat the matter 

 in a rather difTerent way to that which has 

 characterized previous West Indian literature on the 

 subject. First of all, the history of the movement in 

 the West Indies and British (Juiana will be traced 

 during the course of the past Wn or fifteen years — 

 n sketch which will demonstrate, it is feared, that there 

 has been an amount of discns.sion, during this j)eriod. 

 out ot all proportion to anything that has been actually 

 aoliicvcd. 



Members of societies, Boards and ('ominissions have 

 spoken interestingly and sincerely of Raiffeisen's, 

 Schulze's, Luzzati's and the other original S3"stems of 

 rural credit; they have appealed to their respective 

 Governments for assistance which in man}- cases has 

 been granted; tliey have actually caused to be founded 

 with Government money, substantial loan banks of the 

 limited liability type; and yet with the exception, 

 perhaps, of Jamaica, Barbados, and St. \'incent, rural 

 credit remains in much the same, if not in a worse 

 condition than it was ten years ago. 



\\hat is it that is required:* 'J'hat is the firsfc 

 ijuestion that needs a definite answer. It would 

 appear that a system of agricultural credit is required 

 which will serve, broadly speaking, two elasses of 

 landowners: firstly, those who cannot offer real security, 

 and secondly, those who can. The former class may 

 be considered first. During the pa.st ten years, there 

 has been a land settlement movement in the 

 West Indies, the object of which has been to remove 

 the evil discovered by the Royal Commissioners in 

 1SJ)7. Apart from (iovernment land settlement, there 

 has also occurred, during recent years, a voluntary 

 splitting up of the larger estates in many places, 

 and there now exists a large class of peasant 

 proprietors who froin time to time urgently rftpiire 

 small amounts of working capital, that is capital 

 for reproductive purposes on their one- acre or 

 five-acre holdings. Particularly in some of the larger 

 land settlement districts, where members of the 

 community are in close contact, a system of nuitual 

 credit is eminently desirable — as desirable as 

 a system of mortgage credit is, for obvious reasons, 

 undesirable. For these, societies of the Rait^eisen type 

 or the RaifTeisen type slightly modified, should prove 

 useful and work satisfactorily. 



