416 
SPICES 
CHAP. 
record as to whether the cultivation has been carried on 
later to any extent. 
Barbados. — Mr. J. E. Bovell gives some account of 
cultivation experiments here in 1898 (Barbados Botanical 
Station, Occasional Bulletin, No 9, 1898). The object 
of these experiments was to find a payable substitute 
for sugar in fields affected by a cane-disease, while the 
fields were recovering from the presence of the fungus. 
The first experiment was made with blue ginger, which 
gave a return of 19,420 lbs. an acre. Next year both 
blue and yellow were tried, with the result that the 
blue gave a crop of 18,150 lbs. to the acre, the yellow 
17,226 lbs. When the ginger had been scraped and 
dried it weighed, of blue 3,076 lbs., of yellow 3,794 lbs. 
For valuation four samples were sent to Messrs. 
Wilkinson and Gaviller, London, who reported on them 
as follows : — 
Sample 1. Whole rhizomes of yellow valued 75s. per cwt. 
The average value was 70s. per cwt. The firm 
recommended that ginger of these qualities should not 
be sorted into grades, but should be sold without 
sorting, as this ginger would only do for grinding. 
Only very carefully selected ginger of the finest quality 
should be separated out as a grade. 
About this time a consignment of nine barrels of 
Barbados ginger was sold at auction in London (June 
15, 1898). The parcels were not of first quality, but 
fetched 73s. 6d. per cwt. 
The reporters said : “ The parcels showed a large 
proportion of nearly green ginger, which of course 
lessens the value, as dry hard ginger of good strength 
will always command a market, whereas on a slack 
market undesirable stuff, viz. green or dirty, is very 
difficult of sale.” The value of Jamaica ginger of 
middling quality was then 80s. to 85s. per cwt. 
The gentleman who shipped this ginger wrote that 
33 
2. „ blue 
3. Pieces of yellow 
4. ,, blue 
73s. to 74s. 
70s. to 71s. 
68s. to 70s. 
