33 



planters had been alive to the necessity of treatment at once they 

 would have kept the worms under. The Paris green had been 

 washed off by the rains, and this discouraged many people from 

 using it as freely as they might otherwise have done. Those 

 were discouraging conditions, but, on the other hand, prices had 

 risen. 



Mr. G. Carrington said he used to plant cotton sixteen years 

 ago, and his plan was for it to come into bearing in February. 

 He still thought this was what should be aimed at. November 

 and December were the wet months in Barbados, and he did not 

 think they should bring their cotton forward to be picked in those 

 months. The best fields now growing in the island had been 

 planted in October. 



The President observed that no hard and fast lines had been 

 laid down by the Department. They might adopt early or late 

 planting as suited to local circumstances. They were still 

 experimenting. October was a late month. Of course, if they 

 had regular seasons the matter would be more easily dealt with. 

 The object to be kept in view, was, as far as possible, to adopt 

 cotton as a rotation crop on sugar estates. 



Sir Alfred Jones enquired if the cotton growers in Barbados 

 required advances to enable them to carry on cultivation. 



Mr. Clarke explained the working of the Plantations in Aid 

 Act, by which the £80,000 granted to Barbados to aid in tiding 

 over the period until the Brussels Convention came into force, 

 was used for financing estates generally. The Commissioners 

 working this grant had not made a single bad debt since the Act 

 was passed. 



Mr. Pearson thought the grant had been made purely to aid in 

 sugar cultivation. 



Mr. Jesse Collings said he remembered the debate perfectly, and 

 the grant was asked for and made for the general regeneration of 

 the islands rather than for any specific industry. 



Mr. Clarke said it was not as if they had a lot of new men 

 coming in and taking up the land to establish anew industry and 

 oust sugar cane cultivation. The same planters were going on 

 as before. Cotton, moreover, was a subsidiary industry, and they 

 aimed at making it a rotation crop. 



Mr. Jesse Collings considered Mr. Clarke's explanation perfectly 

 sound : and Sir Thomas Hughes and Mr. Henniker Heaton agreed. 



Dr. Watts gave a summary of the results of cotton growing in 

 the Leeward Islands. The report was favourable on the whole, 

 although the seasons this year had been against the planters. He 

 mentioned that in some of the smaller islands, especially in 

 Anguilla, the introduction of cotton growing had changed the 

 habits of the people, and instead of subsisting on root crops and 

 raising a little stock they were building up a regular industry and 

 an export trade. 



Sir Daniel Morris, dealing with the cotton industry in St. Vincent, 

 said that Island had suffered badly by the hurricane of 1898, and 

 it had been further thrown back by the eruption of 1 902. Soon after 



