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A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XVI. No. 402. 



BARBADOS. SEPTEMBER 22, 1917. 



Price Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Paoe. 



Agriculture in Barbados... 29!t 



A Noxious Weed 297 



Bread and Mixed Meals, 

 and the Preparation of 



Yeast 297 



Cotton Exports from the 



West Indies ... 294 



Date Culture in Cnlifornia 231 

 Departmental Reports 301 

 Efl'orts to Produce Local 



Foodstutis 294 



Extension of Cultivation 



in St. Kitts 296 



Forage and Green-Dress- 

 ing Crops in Rhodesia 297 



Gleanings 300 



Insect Notes: — 



Some Insect Pests in 

 Jamaica 298 



Page. 



Items of Local Interest ... 303 

 Local Cultivation of Food 



Crops 289 



Market Reports 304 



New Kconomics 29f> 



Notes and Comments ... 290 

 Peach Trees in the Tropics 297 

 Plant Diseases: — 



The Porto Rico Cane 

 Disease: Comparisons 302 

 Pomegranate, Tlie Neg- 

 lected 291 



Preparing Sweet Potatoes 

 for Meal 292 



Recipes for Making Bread 

 with Flour Substitutes 299 



The Sugar Market 296 



Tomatoes 293 



Local Cultivation of Food Crops. 



|NE of the lessons which the present war 

 I has brought prominently to public notice, is 

 » the necessity for each country to be able, as 

 liar aa possible, to feed itself from its own resources. 

 The danger of being dependent to any large extent 

 for the necessaries of life on products imported from 

 foreign countries has been acute in Great Britain, and 

 the same danger menaces the population of the West 

 Indies, which of late years has come to rely more and 

 more upon imports of food chiedy from Canada and 

 the United States. We cannot say that in these islands 

 we have been in actual danger of famine, but the 

 menace has been such that the Governments of the 



various colonies, and the Agricultural Departments 

 and Agricultural Societies have bent their efforts 

 towards rousing the attention of the people to the 

 necessity, as a sound economic precaution, of increased 

 production of food crops which can be grown locally 

 in sufficient quantities to feed the population. In 

 another article in this issue there is given a resum^ of 

 the results of these efforts in various islands. It is 

 evident that success on the lines of self-support is 

 possible to a very large extent, if energy enough is 

 displayed, and if people will understand that it is 

 really sound policy. 



The almost complete dependence for foodstuffs, 

 such as Hour, meal, beans and peas, butter, salt fish and 

 salt meat, which has been exhibited in the West 

 Indies during recent times, was not the case in the 

 earlier history of the colonization of these islands. The 

 early colonists proved able to feed themselves soon after 

 their settlement. Ligon, who published his History of 

 Barbados in 1657, describes very fully the resources of 

 the island as to foodstuffs. Wheat flour was apparently 

 the only article of that class imported, and that was so 

 scarce that it seems to have been used only in cake and 

 pastry making. In place of wheat flour the colonists 

 used meals made from cassava and maize, and Ligon 

 praises bread made of a mixture of the two*. These, 



*Ligon's actual words are: — 



'Having said as much of the bread of dismvie as I know, 

 I give you one word of another kind of bread they make, 

 which is a raixt sort of bread and is made of the Hower of 

 Mayes and Oassavie mixt togetlier; for the Mates itself will 

 make no bread, it is so extream heavy and lumpish: But thes* 

 two being mixt. they make it into large Cakes, two inches thick; 

 and that, in my opinion, tasts the likest to English bread of 

 any.' 



A true and exact History of the Island of Barbadoes, by 

 Richard Ligon, Gent. (p. 30.). 



