Colonisation Scheme. 89 



Coast Industries. 



14. As regards sugar we call attention to the following extract from 

 the " Timehri " article (Royal Agricultural and Commercial Society of 

 British Guiana's Magazine) of the Director of Science and Agriculture, 

 Hon. Professor Harrison, C.M.G. (August, 1918) : — 



" A conservative estimate of the area of lands well suited for sugar- 

 " cultivation in the districts from the mouth of the Pomeroon in the North 

 " West to the West Bank of the Corentyne river in the east is 351,000 

 "acres exclusive of the area already empoldered on sugar estates. Sixty- 

 " four thousand acres of this may be at present beneficially occupied by 

 " products other than sugar leaving 467,000 acres available for the exten- 

 " sion of sugar cultivation. At the present proportion of lands yearly 

 " cropped with sugar to the total empoldered area this would give in 

 " round figures 177,000 acres to be reaped each year yielding a mean 

 " annual crop of 320,000 tons of sugar. 



" The possible annual crop of sugar in districts in British Guiana 

 " where sugar-cane has been cultivated could with sufficient capital, 

 " labour, progressiveness and enterprise be increased to 446,000 tons of 

 " sugar as a minimum to 563,000 tons if 50 7 of the land was yearly 

 " cropped or by utilising the highest possible proportion of the suitable 

 " lands for cultivation to upwards of 800,000 tons, which by fully 

 " applying modern scientific methods in cultivation and manufacture 

 ". might be increased to upwards of a 1,000,000 tons. 



" The enquiries as to the amount of sugar produceable by the exist- 

 " ing labour-supply are very difficult to satisfactorily reply to. What pro- 

 portion of the labour-supply will work on the production of sugar? 

 " The present production is largely limited by this. It is also limited by 

 " the energy, the enterprise, and the progressiveness of the proprietors, 

 " their willingness and ability to make use of mechanical cultivation 

 "wherever feasible, by the progressiveness, both agriculturally and 

 " mechanically, of the managers of the estates, by their knowledge of, 

 " and their applications of such knowledge to, problems of selection of 

 " varieties, manuring of plants and control of fungoid and insect pests. 



" I may mention that in forming the estimate of the area of land 

 " available for the extension of sugar-cane planting in the parts of the 

 " colony in which the sugar-industry has been carried on, only alluvial 

 "lands to a mean depth of two miles from the coastal and river facades 

 " were taken into account and from the total of these the areas which in 

 " 1914 were under cultivation with products other than sugar cane were 

 " deducted." 



It should be mentioned that notwithstanding the difficulties caused 

 by the war a considerable quantity of modern machinery has been intro- 

 duced and much more is on the way. Speaking generally the sugar 

 factories are under a rapid process of modernization. At least three 

 large schemes of central factories are being carried out. Caterpillar 



