!78 



THE AGRICULTURAL iS'EWS. 



September 9, 1905. 



I 



I 



ANGUILLA. 



has forwarded the following 

 progress of cotton cultivation 



Dr. Fi-ancis Watts 

 interesting report on the 

 at Anguilla : — 



The shipment of 30,977 lb, of cotton from Anguilla 

 during the half-j'ear ending .June 30, 1905, to be followed, 

 I presume, by further small shipments during the following 

 quarter, is a fact too significant to be overlooked. 



Jlr. Shepherd also informs me that an amount of 

 selected cotton .seed has been imported from St. Vincent 

 .sufficient to plant upwards of 1,000 acres. How much will 

 be planted I am not in a position to sa)-, but remarkable 

 activity now prevails. There are two small ginneries, each 

 with an oil engine, and keen commercial competition exists 

 between [Messrs. Roniondt and Rey, both of whom are 

 making offers for the purchase of seed-cotton. 



With anything like a good season the output of cotton 

 from Anguilla should, next year, amount to .something very 

 considerable. This is most important, for of late years 

 Anguilla has been an unproductive island and its 

 administration has been a source of anxiety to the 

 Government. The rapid development of a cotton industry 

 .should change all that. 



ROTATION IN COTTON CULTIVATION. 



Mr. J. E. Bovel!, F.L.S., F.C.S., has forwarded the 

 following note on cotton cultivation at Barbados in 

 relation to a regular system of rotation of crops : — 



The cotton industry can be maintained at a high state 

 of efficiency if a regular system of rotation is practised. This 

 rotation should be as follows :— sugar-canes, sweet potatos, 

 cotton, and Indian corn, and then sugar-canes again com- 

 mencing the rotation anew. To \mt it a little more fully, if 

 sugar-canes were reaped in, say, 1 905, sweet potatos should be 

 planted in August or September that year. These potatos 

 would be ripe at the beginning of 1906. As soon as they 

 are dug the land should be manured and prepared for cotton, 

 v\hich should be planted in about June of 1906. The land 

 under cotton should remain under that cultivation until 

 about the end of 5Iay 1907, when the plants .should be dug 

 up and Indian corn .sown. When the Indian corn is reaped 

 the land should be manured, and sugar-canes planted during 

 November or December of the same year. In this way the 

 ratooning of cotton would be avoided, and all cotton 

 plants, many of which are found, at the end of the first year, 

 to contain immense numbers of insects, would be destroyed 

 before the new cotton crop was planted, thus preventing any 

 likelihood of the new cotton being infected with scale insects 

 from the old crop. 



EXPORTS FROM THE WEST INDIES. 



The following is a statement (furnished by the 

 Custom's Department in each case) showing the 

 amount and estimated value of Sea Island cotton 

 exported from the various West Indian Colonies during 

 the quarter ended June 30, 1905 : — 



* Bans. 



The ex])orts for the quarter ended March 31, 

 1905, were published in the Ai/ricultural Xeus (Vol. 

 IV, pp. 151 and 214). The following table shows the 

 exjiorts for the season 1904-5 (up to June 30) com- 

 pared with similar returns for the previous season : — 



ba".s. 



1 including 33 bags ; - including 12 liags ; -^ including 74 



