V^oL. V. No. 97. 



THE AGEICULTURAL NEWS. 



11 



SCHOOL GARDENS IN ST. LUCIA. 



In his report on the primary schools of St, Lucia 

 for 1904., the Inspector of Schools (Mr. C. F. Condell) 

 makes the following reference to school gardens: — 



It lias been impossible for me so far to pay as much 

 attention to the school gardens as I should have wished, 

 since during my Acting-Inspectorship I was seldom able to 

 leave Castries. From those I have visited, I am inclined to 

 think that the primary object of their establishment, that of 

 agricultural instruction, has been in very many cases lost 

 sight of. In a number of gardens the boys seem merely to_ 

 busy themselves with the raising of ordinary market vege- 

 tables or common flowers, such as they could cultivate just 

 as well under the direction of tlieir parents. This may be 

 partly the cause of the strong objection some of the parents 

 appear to have to their children working in the gardens. 

 I have been given to understand that several children have 

 been removed from one of the Castries schools, which has 

 a good school garden, and sent to another which has none, 

 for this reason. 



Children who work in a school garden should, when 

 working in their own plot, be able to show their parents that 

 they have learnt something these latter diil not know before. 



The bee colony at Choiseul ai>pears to me a really useful 

 and practical experiment. I think it would be a step in the 

 right direction if each school adopted a special kind of 

 cultivation, suited to its district, and made a careful study 

 of this alone. 



Appended to this report is the report of Mr. G. T. 

 Cumberbatch on the annual e.xamination of the schools, 

 from which the following is extracted : — 



Some very fine school gardens -were seen by me, and 

 I could have seen others to better advantage, had not the 

 season, during which my inspection took place, been the dry 

 one. AVhere the soil was humid and the means of obtaining 

 ■water easy, gardens naturally flourished ; but where the above 

 conditions were not favourable, they, on the contrarj', 

 suffered. There were many gardens well laid out, hedged in 

 and properly cleaned, Ijut having no plants to speak of in 

 them on account of want of i-ain ; it was hard fairly to 

 estimate the merits of the teachers and pupils of such schools 

 .at a single visit. More attention should, however, be paid to 

 pot culture and the establishing of nurseries, so as to give 

 pupils a better idea of the growth and gradual development 

 of plants generally. In connexion with these gardens a [irize 

 of £5 was offered by the Agricultural Society for the best 

 garden in the island. The societ}-, at my suggestion, instead 

 of a single prize, very liberal!}- awarded three prizes of £5, 

 XI, and £3 each to the three schools possessing the three 

 best gardens. These prizes were won by the Castries 

 Anglican .luvenile, the Saltibus Combined, and the Vieux-fort 

 Boys. The first-named school has a really fine garden with 

 over fifty difl'ereiit kinds of plants, has water turned on in 

 the middle of the garden, and is conveniently situated near 

 the public market. The head teacher, ]\Ir. Warrican, is an 

 enthusiastic agriculturist. Good work was generally done in 

 questions on the theory of elementary agricultural science. 

 I was generally satisfied with the attention paid to, and the 

 results obtained from, the study of this useful branch of 

 education. 



SISAL HEMP IN THE BAHAMAS. 



The value of the exports of sisal hemp from the 

 Bahamas during the year 1904-5 was £29,557, against 

 a value of £38,805 in the previous year. The Annual 

 Report on the colony has the following reference to 

 the industry' : — 



The factories for extracting sisal fibre are much more 

 numerous and usually stand in the midst of the fields in 

 which the plants are growing. 



The following are a few interesting particulars of the 

 present condition of this industry : — ■ 



The J. S. Johnson Co. have two factories and two 

 machines for extracting and cleaning fibre, have 2,500 acres 

 planted and an output of 253 bales (about 46 tons). 



Menendez & Co. have three factories, about 1,250 acres 

 bearing, one Todd and one Villamor machine in use — output 

 of 296 bales. 



In the island of San Salvador there are two sisal 

 factories belonging to the Bahamas Sisal Plantation with 

 two Todd cleaning machines and two oil engines — output 

 351,700 lb. 



At Abaco there is a factory belonging to Sawyer &, Co., 

 with two cleaning machines and an output of 32 tons of 

 fibre, and at the island of Little Abaco one of the first 

 established of the companies continues at work, making 

 constant improvements, and has now 10 miles of railroad, 

 two cleaning machines with an output of 160 tons. 



There are also two factories at Inagua, and one at 

 Andros Island, the latter having an output of 50 bales. 



WEIGHT AND VALUE OF EGGS. 



In reference to a note suggesting the purchase of 

 eggs by weight, reproduced in the Ar/riculturcd Netvs 

 (Vol. IV, p. 5-4) from the Barbados Advocate, the 

 Cjjprus Journal for November has the following: — 



It is true that the ordinary retail trade in eggs is 

 usually carried on by the sale at so much per dozen, instead of 

 so much per oke [2'1 lb.], but the correspondent cpioted was in 

 error in stating that the sale by weight is nowhere practised. 

 This method of selling eggs is now very generally adopted in 

 the great egg-producing countries. The Danes, for instance, 

 from whom we may learn so much of value in agricultural 

 matters, have for a long time seen the advantage of selling in 

 this manner, or rather the folly, from the producers' as well 

 as the consumers' point of view, of selling by the dozen. 

 A deputation from the Department of Agriculture in Ireland, 

 which made a visit to Denmark in 1903, deals with this subject 

 in their report in the following words : ' The eggs are purchased 

 from the farmers by weight in bulk irrespective of size, and 



are then packed at the centre of that society The 



cases when packed are then de.siiatched to one of the nine 

 district packing stations, where the box is weighed gross, and 

 again weighed when emptied, and the society which has 

 consigned the eggs is paid by weight of Lhe eggs received.' 



This system, as stated above, is now recognized and 

 practised in most European countries. As will be seen, 

 however, the sale by weight is accompanied also by proper 

 and careful grading, and thus purchasers can rely in great 

 measure on getting eggs not only of good size but also of 

 good quality. 



This is one of the direct results of co-operation in 

 agriculture, and until a practical, sustained effort is made to 

 introduce this system into Cyprus, we shall probably continue 

 to be deprived of these benefits which are enjoyed in other 

 countries. 



