FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



NEW 

 BOTA 



qav 



Vol. IX. No. 212. 



BARBADOS, -JUXE 11, 1910. 



Peick Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Page. 



Agi'icultun; and tlio Sup- 

 ply of Labour 177 



Beeswax, Tliu Puritication 



of 181 



Book Shelf 183 



Borde.uix Mixture, .\yuick 



Wayof Making 181 



Calathea .\llnuya. Tubers 



Fruit Cultivation in India 180 



Fungus Notes : — 



The Chief Groups of 

 Fungi, Part VI 11 ... I'.Ml 



Gleanings IHH 



Insect N(_)tes :— 



The Hardback Beetles 186 

 Manures, Some Effects of 



on tlie Soil 187 



Market Reports I!t2 



Notes and Comments ... 184 

 Renard Ko.id Train, The l.So 

 Riee in lUitisli Guiana 187 

 Rubber Trees and Green 



Manuring IfS.'i 



Seed.s, Protection of, from 



Birds 1H.0 



Students' Corner 18!» 



Sugar Industry : — 



Introduction of Sugar- 

 Canes into Mauritius 17!* 

 Sugar Cultivation in 



Bengal 17'.t 



Talipot Palm, Ta])pingTlie 191 

 West Indian Product-s ... IHI 



Agriculture aud tho Supply of 

 Labour. 



this way, the population is supported, and a requisition 

 is made upon other lands, whereby the means is pro- 

 vided for obtaining such articles as cannot be produced 

 locally. 



The consequence of the soil as the origin of the 

 more necessary of the commodities consumed by man 

 has been recognized for a long time, but there has 

 existed, nevertheless, a tendency to underrate the 

 importance and dignity of the labour by means of which, 

 only, it can be made to yield the products that are of 

 especial use to mankind. To this there has been added 

 the mistaken idea that the duties of the direction of 

 that labour could be assumed equally well by men 

 of very different mental attainments, and that nothing 

 in the way of special training was necessary or expedient, 

 in order that those duties may be taken up in an 

 efficient manner. The attitude of true students of the 

 subject has always been of the opposite nature, for 

 mention may be made of such early economists as 

 Vauban, who stated that labour is the foundation of all 

 wealth, and agriculture the most important species of 

 labour, and William Petty, who wrote: 'Labour is the 

 father and active principle of wealth, lands are the 

 mother.' 



?HE conditions in the West Indies, as in 

 most tropical countries, are such that 

 nearly all labour may be considered to be 

 agricultural. The chief source of wealth is the soil_ 

 and it is to this that man, aided by the changes that 

 are brought about in it by natural agencies, applies his 

 energies in order that he may provide himself with the 

 means of subsistence, and may, in so doing, raise crops 

 that will find willing purchasers in other countries. In 



Although this regard for the importance of the 

 soil to man had an early origin, it was tempered, until 

 recent years, by the idea that its value as a producer 

 of crops must, of necessity, decrease continually; that is 

 to say, the greater the amount of removal of crops from 

 it, the smaller became its power to yield ane\v. This 

 opinion was given an axiomatic value by economists of 

 the school of J. S. Mill, who formulated the law of 

 diminishing production from land, which stated that 



