290 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



September 22, 1917. 



together with sweet potatoes, they cultivated in large 

 quantities. Later on various beans and peas were 

 introduced, and these also were very generally grown 

 on all the estates. 



There are reasons why the planters have in most 

 of the islands given up growing provision crops to any 

 great extent. First, there was the abolition of slavery, 

 a natural corollary of which was that the planters were 

 no longer legally responsible for providing food for the 

 labourers on their estates. It was genei-ally considered 

 that the labourer could look after himself, and out of his 

 wages buy his own food, especially as the expansion of 

 agriculture in the United States was making it possible 

 to import largely and cheaply such articles of food as 

 flour and meal. In the next place the then high price of 

 of sugar and its by-products rendered the cultivation of 

 sugar-cane so remunerative, that, wherever possible, all 

 the energies of the planter were devoted to it. After 

 emancipation also, the labour supply was deficient 

 throughout the West Indies, so that the planters 

 believed that it was more to their advantage to cease 

 cultivating food crops, and to employ all the land and 

 labour they could in the production of sugar. 



This was, one can now see, a shortsighted and 

 mistaken policy in several ways. The shortage of 

 labour was really accentuated by it, for in so many of 

 the islands there was abundance of uncleared or forest 

 land, where the emancipated labourer could make 

 a clearing, and, with his few wants, support himself and 

 his iamily on its produce without even working for 

 a wage. Thus the production of locally oiltivated food- 

 stuffs gradually fell into the hands of the labourers, who 

 did not grow much more than was required for their own 

 maintenance, while the planter was forced often to 

 restrict his cane cultivation, because he could get no 

 labour. In another way the increased dependence on 

 imported foods was a mistake, because the profits which 

 certainly did accrue from selling foodstuffs were diverted 

 from the pockets of those who might have produced 

 them locally into the pockets of the importers, a large 

 portion ultimately of course being remitted to farmers 

 of other countries who grew enough for export. Again 

 it would have been of more advantage, probably, to 

 the planter to have grown a rotation of such crops as 

 corn, beans, sweet potatoes, or cassava, with his sugar- 

 cane, than to have gone on planting crop after crop of 

 cane on the same land, even if he had to cultivate 

 fewer acres. It was also a shortsighted policy because 

 of the dangers incident to any agricultural community 

 of depending upon one crop only. Thus when the 



price of sugar went down, the cultivation of sugar- 

 cane was still the only resource in most of the West 

 Indian islands, and yet money had to go away to 

 obtain the food which the country did not supply, but 

 which might have been produced had the cane grower 

 correctly realized the economic situation. 



Almost the only island of the West Indies where 

 the planters have continued to grow, along with sugar- 

 canes, considerable crops of foodstuffs, is Barbados; 

 but even here the general complaint of late years has 

 been that there is a great decline in this matter. 

 Here we are faced with another cause of the disin- 

 clination of not only the large cultivator, but even 

 the man who cultivates but an acre or two, to plant 

 such crops as corn and potatoes. This is the prevalence 

 of praedial larceny, of the immorality of which the 

 West Indian labourer seems to have such a small 

 idea. The Governments in the various islands are 

 being awakened to the necessity of putting this down 

 with a strong hand, if continued progress in the matter 

 of food production is to be a.ssured. 



It has been suggested in the publications of this 

 Department that praedial larceny would be checked, 

 at least in some degree, if crops were protected by 

 hedges. If hedges were planted along the main r'^ads 

 they would screen the young crops, and render them 

 less tempting to the thief and less accessible. Land- 

 owners would do well to give this matter consideration. 



The question of increased food production is 

 a pressing one to-day in almost every country of the 

 world. It is being met in England by a very large 

 increase in the acreage put under food crops. In the 

 West Indies it will have to be met in a similar way. 

 Owing to the shortage of ships, and the expanding 

 rates of freight consequent thereon, the price of imported 

 articles of food has gone up immensely in these islands 

 since the war began. The price of sugar has risen 

 even higher in proportion, but it will not be wise, there- 

 fore, for the sugar planter to continue in, or return to, 

 his neglect of food products. It would probably make 

 for the advantage of the planter both pecuniarily and 

 with regard to his being able to secure a suppi}' of 

 contented labour, to^pay attention to raising food crops 

 in order that the labourers may obtain cheap and 

 wholesome food. 



The chief interest of these islands is agriculture, 

 and the more crops are diversified in an agricultural 

 country the more secure is the basis of its prosperity. 

 This has been exemplified in the recent history of the 



