35 



planted with cotton and a few yams. The first cropping with corn 

 and cotton had entirely failed, due it was supposed to the seed 

 having got damaged on the voyage from England. The crops then 

 growing were the produce of country seed and were very 

 promising." 



In 1888 the Royal Niger Company, whose trading operations 

 extended as far inland as Gando and Sokoto, began some cultural 

 work at Asaba. In their Annual Report for the year ending 

 31st December, 1888, it is recorded that " with the valuable 

 assistance of Mr. Thiselton-Dyer, Director of the Royal Gardens 

 at Kew, the Council have established a public botanical plantation 

 on a small scale at Asaba, where experiments in the commercial 

 botany of the territories are conducted, and from which it is 

 intended that suitable plants and seeds may shortly be supplied at 

 a moderate price to native and European cultivators and settlers. 

 " They have also established in the neighbourhood of Abutshi a 

 second experimental Administrative plantation for the growth of 

 coffee and cocoa, for the purpose of similar distribution to all who 

 may desire to cultivate those products." * 



In January, 1889, the Company applied to Kew for a man to 

 take charge of the botanical work on Plantation No. 1 at Asaba, 

 and Mr. George Woodruff was appointed. 



In July, 1889, a second man was applied for from Kew, and 

 Mr. Harold Edmund Bartlett was appointed with the special 

 charge of No. 2 Plantation at Abutshi. Plantation No. 1 at 

 Asaba did not prove satisfactory owing to the too great dryness 

 and lightness of the soil, and Mr. Woodruff was transferred about 

 the end of September, 1889, to a plantation with richer soil in the 

 immediate vicinity of the one at Abutshi. 



On the 16th March, 1890, Bartlettf wrote to a friend at Kew :— 

 " I have got about 1,000 acres of land which has to be all opened 

 up and planted. The name of the plantation is the Nkissi Creek 

 Plantation, so named after the Nkissi river which runs through it. 



"About 20,000 coffee and cocoa plants and 130 pods of cocoa 

 seed arrived three days ago from Lagos as a first instalment for a 

 plantation. The plants I took out are doing very well. The coffee 

 plants at Abutshi are very promising, cocoa and cotton likewise 

 show up well. Woodruff is planting Sansevieria hemp now." 



Two months later (May 16th, 1890) Mr. Bartlett died of 

 hasmaturic (Blackwater) fever. 



On the 20th May, 1890, Woodruff,* writing to a friend at Kew, 

 mentioned that his plantation was about 8j acres, and that he 

 hoped by the end of that year to have it all planted ; but a few 

 months later (on the 2nd January, 1891) Mr. Woodruff also died 

 of Blackwater fever. 



The early and sudden decease of these two officers was much to 

 be regretted. It is recorded that the Company did everything in 



* Kew Bulletin, 181)1, pp. 86-87. 



f Kew Bulletin, 1891, p. 90. 



X Kew Bulletin, 1891, p. 93. where Woodruff's letter is given in full. 



33385 C 2 



