, 1892-10-26
T HE AVIS
Christiangted, st, CCoig,
Wednesday, 10Th October 1892.

w COAC60dy EOOA ONoOONA Lux
% lines OF rain were measured at the Fort
on Monday morning, q yesterday, and II
this morning. 4 lines were recorded at Ere
deriksted's Fort yesterday.
The cricket match played at Betty's Hope
Yesterday between the clubs of the two towns
ended in a victory for Frederiksted, which in
the two innings made ~ luns against So
made by Christiansted. Some particulars will
be given tomorrow. We hear that a match
was also played on the Parade Ground, about
VIII ch we hope to get some information.
At the Colonial Councils meeting on Mon
day, called at the request of the Government
ment, His Excellency the Governor introduce
ed an Additional Money Bill to the Budget
for 1929, proposing to provide $500 for the
fitting out Of an agricultural laboratory.
His Excellency the Governor, said that
since the Additional Money Bill had been
drawn up he had been informed that one item
in the chemists estimate had been stated too
low, namely the amount for providing gas
lighting for the laboratory, which should have
been put down at $3.50 instead of $50. He
would therefore ask the Council"to grant $500
instead Of $500 as stated in the bill.
When in the remarks to the draft, "unfa-
vourable circumstances affecting the sugar
cane cultivation were spoken of, the refer
ence was to the low prices that had prevailed
for sugar tor many years past. From 1884 to
1892, leaving out the year 1889, when prices
had been higher, the average price for sugar
had been at the rate of 2.45 cents per ID.
This would give $36. rs per hogshead Of sugar.
Now as the average produce per acre, for a
number Of years, namely fromil882 to 1889, has
on an Average been less than | 600 lbs ofsugar
per acre it followed that the & oss return per
acre was only % or "a dollars. When we al
low for the cost of cultivation there is little
orDo margin OF profit. Hence if there We're
no Improvement, he had grave doubts whether
it would be possible to continue The sugar Gull
%tivation. Improvements might be made in
two ways, one way was by getting more sugar
out of the canes; by double crushing, for ex-
ample, as was done at one of the Factory
Stations, and by which about / ID. sugar more
was obtained out of 100 lbs. of canes; or by
the use Of vacuum pans or other improvements
in machinery. all of which were very ex-
pensive and not easy for all to attain. The
other way was by improving the cultivation
so an to get a larger yield of cane. That i'm
piled an extensive use of manure. The island
did not produce enough natural manure, to re-
" on that alone, and therefore it was de-
sirable to import artificial manure. And even
if the island could produce enough natural
manure, the carting of it was q very onerous
task. 1t was estimated that 100000 lbs. of
natural manure to the acre was not too much.
bat this meant placing 100 cart loads ian or
binary cart load being about 1000 lbs. on
each acre Of land, an arduous task. If artlti-
cial manure were USED the one hundreth part.
of this quantity, or less, would be sufficient
But if we used artificial manureS we must
know what they were and we must know what
the soil was on which the manure was used,
and to get this knowledge we needed the help
of a chemist, AS we have here easy access to