54 



THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



February 25, 1905. 



iKitfcI for ;i tine oyster whiL-h ^rows on the iiiaiigroxes in 

 a large, laiuMocked harl^our there. 



KT. LUCIA. 



A fairly large number of boats is engaged in fishing 

 arnunit the coast of the island, but solely for the purpose of 

 supplying the local market, and no atteniiit is made at 

 jireserving for export purposes. 



WEST INDIAN FISHERIES. 



The following arc extr.icts from the Animal 

 Reports on the We.st Iiufian Colonies for 190.3 in 

 ■which references are made to the fisheries : — 



BAHAMAS. 



The marine inilustries include the catching of turtle, 

 both of the edible species and of the si)ecies which affords 

 the turtle, or tortoise, shell of commerce. 



An interesting venture in hatching turtle eggs and 

 breeding young turtle is now being carried on at Inagua, 

 concerning which the liesident .Justice reports as follows : — 



'The turtle indus-try is in a flourishing condition. The 

 mouth of the creek has been fenced across, and nurseries 

 made for young turtle. Large quantities of turtle eggs have 

 been gathered and stored in barrels of sand for hatching. 

 The hatching process takes si.\ weeks. Several hundreds of 

 young turtle have thus far been hatched and placed in 

 nurseries where they are fed on coiichs for a week or two 

 until old enough to search for food on their own account.' 



Some alarm has been felt at the condition of this and 

 the sponge industry, and a Hoard has been constituted to 

 investigate the present condition of the sponge beds and 

 turtle fisheries and recommend to the Government such 

 measures as may appear necessary and feasible for the 

 prevention of the exhaustion of the sponge beds and for 

 keeping up the stock of turtle. 



BARBADOS. 



Another industry which has been fostered by the 

 Imperial Deiiartment of Agriculture is the curing for export 

 of tlying fish, albacore, and the various other fish that 

 abound in these waters. The experiments made have gone 

 to show that the fish, both pickled and dry-salted, can be 

 exported and sold at a fair profit in the neighbouring 

 colonies, and there is no reason to doubt that it will also 

 find a sale here at times when the fresh fish is not obtainable. 



HEITISn (iUIANA. 



There is an abundance of fish in the waters of the colony, 

 but as an industrial pursuit fishing is comparatively neglected, 

 though several small fish-curing enterprises have lately been 

 taken up. The deep-sea fishing, established some years ago 

 for the supply of the local market, has been maintained, and 

 Georgetown is well supplied with grouper, dolphin, red 

 snapper, etc. The Fisheries Commission, appointed by the 

 Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society in 1901, is still 

 collecting information with regard to the habits, breeding 

 seasons, etc., of the fishes of the colony. * 



GRENADA. 



Fish is caught only on the coasts for daily consumption. 

 Whales and turtle abound in their seasons, and Carriacou is 



WEIGHT AND VALUE OF EGGS. 



A correspondent writes in the Barbados Ath'orate 

 of February 11 as follows: — 



It is most extraordinary that the variety in the weight 

 and value of eggs as an article of merchandise should have 

 been so universally overlooked. So far as is known, it has 

 always been the custom everywhere to sell eggs by number, 

 without respect to size, weight, or peculiar quality, yet no 

 alisurdity can bo greater. It has been ascertained by careful 

 experiments recently made, that the fair average weight for 

 a dozen eggs is 22| oz. It appears that the largest eggs 

 weigh 2-t oz. per dozen, and the smallest only Hi oz. In 

 the one case a fraction over eleven eggs would equal the 

 averao-e weight of a dozen, and in the other it would require 

 over eighteen eggs to reach the proper weight ; thus the 

 ditference in weight between the two kinds is about one-half, 

 while the price is the .same. 



It may be mentioned that the way to improve 

 the size and quality of eggs is to select carefully the 

 best stock for breeding purposes, and also to give 

 special attention to the feeding of poultry. Full 

 intormation in this connexion will be found in 

 Pamphlet No. 23, Notes on Poultry in the West 

 Indies. A feature of this pamphlet is that preference 

 is given to native food-stuffs. 



A note on this subject in the Natal Agrleultiuul 

 Juurnul has the following: — 



Primitive simplicity characterizes colonial dealings in 

 poultry and eggs. A fowl is a fowl with many C(ilonist.s, and 

 so is an egg an egg. A correspondent writes : — 



'I recently bought from a leading Maritzburg grocer 

 a dozen of eggs, for which I paid 2s. On returning home 

 1 weighed them against a dozen of eggs, laid by my 

 Orpington fowls. These eggs weighed just twice as much as 

 my shop ones. Still 1 do not think people will buy them at 

 4s. per dozen.' 



Most probably not. A considerable member of the town 

 burgers are thrifty housewives, who find small eggs fried 

 or boiled serve as well as large ones. In general cooking, 

 however— and eggs come into nearly every good recipe— 

 a big egg, such as that of the Orpington, may be counted as 

 two,°an(l this immense superiority in quantity should meet 

 with [iroper I'ccognition. 



* In reference to the fisheries of British Guiana we may 

 mention that a little book on t\\n Fhln's of BiHixh Giimiui has 

 recently been jniblished containing interesting and useful 

 notes on river and sea fish in that colony. It is written by 

 Mr. T. Sidney Hargreaves, F.G.S., and is published by the 

 Arcosy Co., Ltd. A brief review of it will be found in the 

 Agricultural Ncici, Vol. IV, p. 11. [Ed. .-1.^^.] 



Grenada's Motto.— 'Clarior e tenebris.' This motto 

 faithfully describes the fortunes of the colony, which after 

 nuich sutl'ering entailed by the decadence of the sugar 

 industrv, has emerged from her troubles more prosperous 

 than ever before. The high tide of prosjierity still continues, 

 liut, with a rapidly increa.sing population, and with the 

 greater portion of the land of the island absorbed by 

 permanent cultivation of products, which are bound to be 

 subject in the future to some vicissitudes, it cannot be 

 said that the .sky is free froTU clouds. (Annual lifitort for 

 1903.) 



