and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— March, 1910. 



281 



ECONOMIC PRODUCTS 8N THE 

 SEYCHELLES. 



RECENT DEVELOPMENTS. 



A copy of the annual report of the Curator of 

 the Botanio Station and Crown lands in the 

 Seychelles, for 1908, has been supplied to the 

 Imperial Institute by the Colonial Office, and 

 from it the following summary of the progress 

 of agricultural and other work in these Islards 

 has boon prepared. 



Coconut Industry. 

 The total exports of coconut products, in- 

 cluding nut, copra, coconut oil and soap, have 

 grown steadily since 1905, but whereas the 

 premier position in that year was taken by coco- 

 nut oil, this product was replaced by copra 

 as the principal export in 1907, and this 

 was still maintained in 1908, though in this 

 year the export of oil showed a considerable 

 increase over that of the previous year. The 

 reason for this is, that the production of copra 

 is more remunerative than the manufacture of 

 coconut oil. If this rearrangement of exports is 

 carried too far, the Curator points out that the 

 local soap industry may be in some danger of 

 not obtaining a sufficient supply of coconut oil; 

 but he is of opinion that the local demand for 

 "poonac " (the residue left after expressing the 

 oil from copra) as a feeding stuff for cattle and 

 poultry, coupled with the utilisation of dam- 

 aged "copra" for the manufacture of oil, will 

 prove sufficient safeguards against local soap- 

 makers being deprived of this raw material. 

 Coconut palms suffer in the Seychelles, as 

 elsewhere, from the attacks of insect pests and 

 from fungoid diseases, and the difficulty in effec- 

 tively coping with these is increased by the fact 

 that many of the palms have been badly culti- 

 vated, owing to greater attention having been 

 given to vanilla until recently. The two groups 

 of pests occur in association, so that it is not 

 always easy to decide which causes the initial 

 damage. The chief insects affecting the palms 

 are three species of beetle — Melitomma insulare, 

 Calandra stigmaticollis and the Rhinoceros beetle 

 {Or^ctes sp.). The two former are boring insects 

 and cause an outflow of sweet sap from the 

 tissues they attack, and this then forms a bree- 

 ding-ground for fungi of various kinds. It 

 appears therefore to be of greatest importance 

 to destroy the boring beetles, and the estate 

 owners seem to be fully alive to the necessity of 

 this. The " stem-bleeding disease,'' to the oc- 

 currence of which in Ceylon reference has been 

 made already, is also found in Seychelles, 

 where, as in Ceylon, it appears to have been in 

 existence, almost disregarded, for many years. 



Vanilla. 



The crop of this spice in 1908 amounted to 

 only 24-75 tons as against 66-5 tons in the pre- 

 vious year. The decline is due to the weakening 

 of the plants after the heavy yield of the pre- 

 vious year. The best of the Seychelles vanilla 

 is stated to be sold in France, where the market 

 for the finer kinds is said to be better than in 

 the United Kingdom. There is no improvement 

 in the price of vanilla to be recorded, the com- 

 petition with artificial vanillin being more severe 



36 



than ever. Attempts are, however, being made 

 to lower the cost of cultivation of vanilla, and 

 with that end in view experiments in manuring, 

 etc., have been in progress since 1905. These 

 have shown that the application of ground lime- 

 stone (coral) leads to production of more pods, 

 no less than 26 per vine being obtained from 

 each of two series of vines so treated in 1908. 

 The use of nitrate of soda as a manure is advan- 

 tageous, and tends to keep the plants producing 

 pods over a longer period. Larger crops were 

 obtained from plants grown in a mixture of fern 

 roots and soil than with those planted in ordinary 

 oil, this improvement being due apparently to 

 the richness of the fern roots in lime. Shaded 

 plants appear to do better than those freely ex- 

 posed to the sun. Comparative analyses of the 

 ash from two vines, one growth without manure 

 and the other with the application of a " com- 

 plete manure " (coral, sodium nitrate, guano 

 and kainite), indicated that the most importaut 

 manurial constituents for vanilla are lime, soda 

 and phosphates ; potash and magnesia being 

 less important. The effect of each of these com- 

 ponents is now being studied separately. 



Volatile Oils. 



This industry is also making progress ; a new 

 still of 1,000 litres capacity was started in West 

 Mahe, and two more of like size will be erected 

 this year. The climate of Seychelles appears to 

 be well suited to the cultivation of plants yield- 

 ing leaves used for distillation ; thus the clove 

 tree only fruits in the Islands once in three or 

 fouryears. but produces an abundance of leaves 

 which may be used for the distillation of clove- 

 leaf oil. Similarly lemon grass in Seychelles 

 gives twice as much oil as in Reunion, and the 

 " ylang-ylang " tree flowers within a year after 

 planting as against three years required in less 

 humid climates. 



It has been found more profitable to export 

 cinnamon bark as such, than to distil oil from 

 it in the Seychelles, but this may not be the case 

 when the wild plants now used as a source of 

 bark become exhausted and recourse must be 

 had to cultivation. Reference has been made 

 already to the "light" character of the cinna- 

 mon-bark oil so far produced in the Seychelles 

 which accounts for the low price this article 

 brings on the market. Experiments have been 

 made locally to discover the cause of this, but no 

 definite conclusions have been arrived at. At 

 present most of the Seychelles cinnamon bark 

 harvested, is taken from the stems of large wild 

 trees and^ fetches low prices of Id to l^d or 2d 

 per lb. Attempts have been made to produce 

 "quills" of bark, after the plan adopted in 

 Ceylon, and these have been sold in London at 

 4d to 6d per lb. This and other branches of 

 the spice and volatile oil industry, the Curator 

 thinks, might be encouraged as domestic in- 

 dustries for women and children. Cinnamon- 

 leaf oil from the Seychelles, examined at the 

 Imperial Institute, proved to be of fair quality 

 and worth about 2d per ounce ; but this price 

 appears to be uuremuuerative to the distillers. 

 Clove-leaf oil, on the other hand, of which a 

 yield of 1 per cent, is obtained in practice, is 

 likely to .pay better. Seychelles clove-leaf oil, 

 examined at the Imperial Institute, proved 



