Products and Resources of Nyasaland 



to navigate, large steamers being unable to get 

 within twenty miles. At present all merchandise 

 is shipped on lighters, which are conveyed by tugs 

 to Beira. 



Notwithstanding the drawbacks of transit, the 

 general external trade of Nyasaland is gradually 

 rising, that of 1908-09 exceeding the previous year 

 by ^125,415. The export trade has also increased 

 by four hundred and eighty-three tons in weight 

 and ;^2 7,420 in net value in the same time, chiefly 

 due to cotton and coffee. Rice amounting to two 

 hundred and twenty-seven tons, fibre and tea appear 

 among the new exports. There has been a decrease 

 in strophanthus and ground-nuts, which are not 

 systematically cultivated, and are only purchased 

 from natives in uncertain quantities. 



The report 1909-10 says that planters have been 

 very successful in the past year. Large tracts are 

 now under cultivation, and ''at no time of its history 

 have such large areas of virgin land been opened up 

 for planting or the demand for good land been so 

 keen as at present." 



Cotton* — Cotton remains the first crop in 

 acreage and value that the Protectorate produces. 

 There are two industries, the European and the 

 native. It is expected that the native industry 

 will have greatly augmented in a few years. 

 What keeps it back is the distance natives have to 

 travel to obtain a market, sometimes as much as 

 forty miles. 



The production of cotton has gradually been 

 increasing during the past five years, from two 



III 



