CHAPTER XXXI 



GENERAL REVIEW OF CULTIVATION concluded 

 WEST INDIES AND BERMUDA 



BARBADOS. At the instance * of the Imperial Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture, a banana industry of moderate 

 dimensions was started in Barbados in 1902, with a modest 

 export of eighteen bunches, the variety favoured being the 

 small or Canary banana, known as Musa Cavendishii, 

 which, in its perfect state, commands such a good price 

 as to justify the planters packing each bunch in a crate. 

 In the following year 6669 bunches were shipped ; but 

 the shipments were looked upon as mainly experimental, 

 and no monetary account was kept of the results. From 

 1904, however, a careful account was kept of the number 

 of bananas shipped annually, and of the proceeds, and in 

 that year 15,298 bunches were shipped, of which only 6-6 

 per cent, arrived in an unsaleable condition, while the aver- 

 age net amount paid to the shippers was 25. 4 \d. per bunch. 

 In 1905, from the beginning of January to August 12, 

 21,898 bunches were shipped, and of these only 2-3 per 

 cent, arrived in unsaleable condition, while the planters 

 netted on the average 2s. 5jd. per bunch. This, with 

 trees planted 10 ft. apart, and 10 ft. apart in the rows, 

 represented a very profitable return per acre, and great 

 was the disappointment when the Royal Mail Steam Packet 

 Company began to receive bananas in such quantities from 

 Trinidad that all the cold storage space available was 

 occupied by this fruit, and the bananas from Barbados 

 had to be put in the ordinary holds, with the result that 



* West India Committee Circular, Jan. 28, 1913. 

 244 



