INTRODUCTION 117 



does well, but in the smaller holdings receives, as is usual in 

 peasant agriculture, irregular attention and manuring. Root 

 disease is in consequence rather prevalent, 



Antigua 



Antigua is an island of the open type, lacking forest, with a 

 low or moderate rainfall averaging 45 inches on returns from the 

 whole island, and subject to occasional severe droughts. Agri- 

 culturally the island divides into three districts, the north- 

 eastern limestone area, with a rather light and stony soil and the 

 lowest rainfall, the southern section of low volcanic hills, with 

 more rain, and the central plain, the soil of which is typically a 

 heavy clay, containing salt in places, generally low-lying, from its 

 nature and situation difficult to drain, and having a tendency to 

 lose tilth quickly in ratooned fields. The lowness of the rainfall 

 is partly offset by the retentiveness of the soil, and there are many 

 hollows in which water lodges for the greater part of the year. 



The principal crop is sugar-cane, the cultivation of which was 

 enabled to persist through the years of depression by the early 

 adoption of the central factory system. Scarcely any rotation is 

 practised, the usual course being to grow plant canes and one, 

 two, and in some cases three crops of ratoons, followed by a 

 catch crop of potatoes or corn and by replanting the same year. 

 Crops of corn or of onions are grown with the young canes. 

 The yield of an average estate is about 20 tons of plant cane to 

 the acre and 9 or 10 of ratoons, but local yields up to 40 tons of 

 plant cane can occur under very favourable circumstances. 



These results are only obtainable by the selection of the 

 better parts of the land, and it is characteristic of Antigua that 

 large stretches of scrub and pasture exist which have been more 

 or less permanently thrown out of cultivation. Could the more 

 intensive methods characteristic of Barbados agriculture be 

 applied, it is probable that a much closer approach could be made 

 to the universal state of cultivation of that island. 



Most estates are short of manure, so that not all plant canes 

 receive a share. Chemical manures are used on the ratoon 

 crops. It is the practice to range the trash on alternate banks 

 and cultivate those which intervene. The trash from fields due 

 for replanting is available for the pens. Labour is fairly plentiful, 

 but its efficiency is low owing to prevalent ill-health. Planting 

 is frequently badly delayed by the inability of the factories to 

 deal with the crop in time for the most favourable season to be 

 utilized. 



Under the general circumstances described there is no reason 

 for surprise at the tendency for development of root disease, the 

 effects of which are more pronounced in Antigua than in any 

 other island, though the cause goes to some extent disguised as 

 soil grub infestation. 



Cotton is usually a separate cultivation, located in the more 



