Bulletin of the Department of Agriculture Volume 5-6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1907 Excerpt: ...and will be as small as that for 1900, without the saving grace of high prices. Favourable weather in 1906 promises a good flowering season for tho crop of 1907; the vines are in good heart, and it is probable that--as far as a forecast is possible--the crop should be up to 50,000 kilos. What the failure of the vanilla means to Seychelles may be illustrated by the fact that, for the term of ten years before 1904, the average crop represented an output of 38,476 kilosvalued at Rs. 714,096, and selling at an average price of Rs. 17.95 per kilo. In 1905 the export of vanilla was valued at Rs. 282,876 with an average price of Rs. 5.87 per kilo. And the failure means more than this, for planters were living on a scale commensurate with their recent good fortune, and traders had been accorded credit on a similar scale. Credit ceased suddenly, and advances on crops and on mortgage were called in, and no banking institution existed to help those planters who held valuable properties, but lacked, for the moment, means to keep them in cultivation or to supplement their resources by the introduction of new products. At this juncture the Government, being supported on the authority of the Secretary of State, by a credit with the Crown Agents, was enabled, under the provisions of Ordnance No. 4 of 1904, to advance to approved planters, on the security of first mortgage, sums not to exceed Rs. 100,000 in the aggregate. These loans have saved many planters from bankruptcy, and staved off the abandonment of cultivation on several valuable properties. The amount actually lent at the close of 1905 was Rs. 67,800, when the further operation of the Ordinance had to be suspended. Although the vanilla crop for 1906 is again a failure there has been a resolute effort on all sides...