CAPSICUMS 



141 



The Baro-Kano Railway passes, however, through an 

 extensive tract of thinly populated country before 

 reaching the localities from which a large supply can 

 be reasonably expected, and this may delay the actual 

 results. It would be inadvisable, in the meantime, 

 to encourage cotton cultivation in those districts which 

 are still remote, unless it were possible to buy the crops 

 in advance of any prospective railway extension. 



The following statistical statement has been supplied 

 by the British Cotton Growing Association, showing the 

 production in bales from their ginneries, 1906-1909 : 



Year. 



1906. Sept. 1st, 

 1905, to Aug. 

 31st, 1906 . 



1907. 16 months. 

 Sept. 1st, 1906, 

 to Dec. 12th, 

 1907 



1908 . 



1909. 8 months. 



To Aug. 31st, 



1909 



Lokoja. Ogudu. Total. Weight of Bale. Approx. Ibs. 



903 



1,067 

 84 



133 



903 about 200 Ibs. 180,600 



815 

 239 

 147 



246 



1,882 

 239 

 231 



200 Ibs. each 

 400 Ibs. each 

 400 Ibs. each 



376,400 

 95,600 

 92,400 



379 400 Ibs. each 151,600 



In 1908 the rainfall was deficient in a large part of the 

 country, and the cotton crop, among others, suffered in 

 consequence. A temporary check to cotton- gro whig in 

 Ilorin province occurred in 1909 due to the demand for 

 labour for the railway construction, and a subsequent one 

 occasioned by the war ; but in spite of this, the increase 

 of cotton in Nigeria is to be attributed largely to develop- 

 ments in the Northern Provinces. Cf. Bull. Imp. Inst., 

 vol. x., p. 480, and vol. xi. pp. 70, 165 and 656.* 



CAPSICUMS. An increasing export trade seems to be 

 becoming established in red peppers and chillies (Capsi- 

 cum annuum and C. frutescens), plants which thrive well 

 in West Africa. 



In the Ilorin and Nupe Provinces, the plants are usually 

 grown in the vicinity of houses, but in the Kano and 

 Zaria districts they are frequently met with in irrigated 

 fields. From the latter localities an almost unlimited 

 supply could be obtained. 



* For the most recent information respecting cotton cultivation 

 here and elsewhere in West Africa, Professor Dunstan's Reports to 

 the Brussels Congress of Tropical Agriculture (1910) should be con- 

 sulted. 



