4 
TtlE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST'. [July 1, 1902. 
Coylon ? Can the iiiamifacture of oil bo carried on 
at the same time and in the same building as the 
desiccating process? I should be much obliged if 
you could give answers to the above questions. 
I am, yours truly, 
VANILLA. 
[We would advise "Vanilla" to address one of our 
Machinery houses, say Messrs. Walker, Sons & Co., 
Ltd., The Colombo Commercial Co., Ltd., Colombo, 
as for the requisites in machinery required for desic- 
cated coconut and the oil. — Ed. T,A.] 
■■ »• » 
PRUIT, SUGAR, TOBACCO, &c. IN 
JAMAICA. 
From a paper read before the Society of arts 
by Mr. H. T. Thomas, twenty-five years resident in 
Jamaica, wc quote : — 
The products of Jamaica are as numerous and 
varied as are its climate and degrees of tcmpor.iture 
at various altitudes. Its soil is, in most districts, 
of wonderful fertility ; and of it one may truly say 
that it has only to be tickled with a hoe to make it 
laugh with a harvest. A great number of those 
products now rot uselesFly on the ground, and still 
await the touch of capital and enterprise to convert 
them into sources of wealth. Oranges, golden and 
luscious, grow wild. Only within the last six or 
seven years, since their value as an article of export 
has begun to be more and more realised, has any 
attempt been made at systematic cultivation, and 
improvement by budding and other processes. The 
sour Seville oranges, of whose rind the most deli- 
cious marmalade is made, literally wither on the 
trees or rot on the ground by millions year by year. 
The same is true in an even higher degree of the 
gtiava, the fruit from which the well-known lus- 
cious jelly is prepared. In some districts the tree 
IS positively a noxious weed, and has to be cut 
down and cleared away by the acres to make room 
for cultivation of other products. 
As a matter of fact, in spite of these circum- 
Btanccs, orange marmalade, manufactured in Eng- 
land or Scotland, and imported into Jamaica, can 
be purchased at a less price than the manufacture 
of the home-made article costs ; aud the same 
would no doubt be th« case with guava jelly, if 
the latter fruit could be xirocurcd at home, as 
oranges are, from other sources. The cause of this 
apparent anomaly lies in free trade, which has the 
effect of making the sugar necessary for these 
manuf-ictures a more expensive article in Jamaica, 
where the sugar itself is made, than it is at home. 
And thin brings us by a natural process to the dis- 
cussion of suf/ar itself, and its concomitant, rum, 
which were once the staple of the island, but have, 
now fallen on such evil times, owing entn-ely to the 
operations of the free trade principal, as to con- 
stitute jointly only 18 per cent of the total value 
of the exports. 'J"hc decay of this industry cannot, 
I think, be more forcibly illustrated than by the 
statement that, w-hcrcas at the begimiing of the 
19th century there were upwards of 800 sugar 
estates in cultivation, there are to-day no more 
than 12L The famous rum of Jamaica, which is a 
house hold word, has been so largely superseded, 
even in the island itself, by whiskey, that it is now 
little more lhan a recollection and a name. There 
is, however, a particular description of rum which 
is only manufactured on certain estates in one 
districi of the island, and which, although utterly 
unflt for human consumption in its natural con- 
dition, is much prized in the (icrman market, .and 
^ eagerly bought up at prices which appear enor- 
mous when compared with those given for the 
ordniary kinds. 
The place once occupied by sugar in the trad© of 
Jamaica has now been completely usurped by fruit : 
first the banana, and then, a long way after, the 
oranqc and the pineapple. In the year 1875 the 
first load of bananas was taken away from Jamaica 
to the United States in a small schooner by a 
Yankee ski|ipcr. In 1879 the total value of the 
fruit exported from Jamaica was estimated at 
£tU,O0O, while in the returns for 1899-1900 it is set 
down at fS 14,000. These bare figures describe the 
growth of the fruit trade more eloquently than any 
words possibly can do. And this trade is entirely 
the offspring of American enterprise. The Yankee 
skipper above-mentioned is now the head of the 
Jamaica branch of the gigantic concern known as 
the United Fruit Company, whose headquarters are 
at Boston, Mass., with offices in New York, Phila- 
delphia, Baltimore, and numerous other places in 
the States, in Central America, and in the "West 
Indies ; notably, since the termination of the Span- 
ish-American War, in Cuba and Porto Rico. They 
own hundreds of thousands of acres of land in 
Jamaica, employ thousands of labourers, and use 
thousands of head of horses, mules, and cattle. 
They contribute thou.sands of pounds to the Inland 
Revenue and the Customs of Jamaica, over and 
above what they spend in wages. &c. Besides 
shipping their own frnit, they purchase millions of 
bunches from other growers, and in the busy season, 
which last from April to July, they despatch from 
twelve to fourteen steamers a week laden with 
fruit. They have laid down tramways, and strung 
telephone wires round half the island. They have 
converted the town of Port Antonio from a fishing 
village into a thriving, bustling, business csntre. 
They have built a fine hotel there, on one of the 
loveliest spots in the whole island, and they fill it 
every winter with hundreds of tourists brought 
down from the States in their own steamers, whose 
money circulates in the island to the common 
benefit. They have prevented the eastern and 
north-eastern districts of the island, where the 
sugar industry fell into decay more rapidly than In 
any other part of it, from relapsing into the con- 
dition of a primeval African wilderness. In short, 
if there is one man in the world to whom the 
grateful inhabitants of Jamaica should erect an 
imperishable monument, that man is the Yankee 
skipper who took away that load of bananas in 
187.5. 
The Americans are more a nation of fruit-eaters 
than the English ; and it is to this fact, and to 
their recognition of the actual food value of the 
banana, that the continued increase of the demand 
for it is due. It is becoming a common article of 
diet among the working classes ; and we hope to 
see the day before long when its value in this 
respect will be equally recognised in the mother 
country. 
In this direction a determined and laudable effort 
was begun last year by a man who has been aptly 
described as a " Napoleon of commerce." He is 
now Sir Alfred Lewis Jones, K.C.M.G., the head 
of the firm of Elder Dempster & Co. He has 
built a sniall fleet of four steamers which ply 
direct between the port of Bristol and Kingston, 
Jamaica, making the voyage in twelve to thirteen 
days. By the terms of his contract, he is bound 
for a period of five years, to purchase in the land a 
minimum of 20,000 bunches of bananas every fort- 
night for sale in the United Kingdom. I well 
remember the interest and anxiety with whicb Ul| 
