NOTICES REI.ATIXG TO AGRICULTRAI, ECONOMY IN GENERAL IO3 



duced from auction sales, less a fixed percentage. The purchase money 

 may be paid in instalments which may extend over thirty years. Until 

 it is paid the settler remains a tenant, and pays R. i an acre, in addition to 

 water rates, land revenue and cesses. 



The pioneering attempts to colonize the land allowed the settler, after 

 five years and on fulfilling the terms of the lease, to acquire ownership bj^ 

 pa3'ing onl}' Rs. 3 an acre. Subsequent modifications were due to the 

 eager competition for the land after pioneering difficulties had been over- 

 come. 



Before the land was let out on leases contour maps of the irrigable 

 lands were made and the areas served b}- separate water-courses defined. 

 Village areas were made to coincide with water-course areas, and each vil- 

 lage was subdivided into squares or rectangles which formed the units for 

 allotment. It was found necessary later also to survey the soil before al- 

 lotment ; for there must be discrimination between good and mediocre 

 land and land too poor for cultivation, if it be desired that water-courses 

 should not be carried uselessly into land not worth irrigating, and many 

 difficulties raised. 



The selection of peasant settlers, their location on the land and care 

 for their future welfare are by no means the least part of the scheme, but 

 may on the contrary be said to sum it up. It is to work of the kind which 

 has been emphasized that the success of this colonization is largely due. 



BRITISH WEST INDIES. 



THE PROGRESS OF LAND SETTLE:VIENT IN GRENADA. 



The Report of the Agricultural Department for 1915-1916 shows con- 

 siderable activity in Grenada in the matter of land settlement. The gov- 

 ernment acquired the estate known as the St. Cyr Mountain I^ands, sit- 

 uated about ten miles from St. Georges, for £2,184, which sum with the 

 cost of a survey and of road construction and other expenses brought the 

 total cost up to £3,597-105. The roads for the purpose of giving access from 

 every lot to the by-ways of the district cost £235 and their total length 

 was three and a half miles. Their construction, and that of a connection, 

 one and a half miles long, between the Beauregard and Adelphi by-ways, 

 were carried out by the Agricultural Department. 



Thirty-six lots bear cacao or mixed cacao and nutmeg trees on a quarter 

 of an acre or more land, on their entire area in only a few cases. Other 

 eighty- four lots are bus'h or forest land. The average area of a lot is two 

 acres. 



The lots on which there is cacao were sold at from about £14 to £35 

 an acre, according to the number and condition of the trees ; the unculti- 

 vated lots at £io-ios and £12 an acre. Purchasers of the more costly 

 lots, which contained cacao, had to pay a deposit of at least is 3^ and 

 the balance of the total price in five annual instalments. The uncultiva- 



