Economy of Bermuda - Agriculture

Agriculture

A major Bermuda industry of the 1920s was the export of early vegetables and flowers to New York. Bermuda had three crops per year. The Bermuda Botanic Gardens (now with 38 acres) had been established in 1898.

In 1922 complete, concise and clear acts dealing with agriculture were placed on the Bermuda statute book; inspection of produce was initiated; and seed testing began. Local seedsmen were registered in 1923. Mr McCallan, the Agricultural Director reorganised the Agricultural Exhibition for 1923. Seed potatoes were gradually improved after much investigation with US experts. A local farmers' market started in 1923. For a year in 1921–23, Professor H H Whetzel of Cornell University advised remedies for the cash crop diseases of potato blight, onion thrips, celery leaf spot, lily Botritis, melon mildew etc. He suggested that the colony should appoint a full-time plant pathologist.

Lawrence Ogilvie was the plant pathologist from September 1923 to April 1928. He introduced regulations in 1924 governing the control of local diseases and pests, and the import of plants — so vital for an island. Import embargoes applied for banana plants, lily bulbs, sweet poatoes, citrus fruits from the West Indies, and certain Irish potatoes. In 1924 a concrete fumigation chamber was built to fumigate infected imports. Good crops of celery were achieved in the 1920s. Citrus cultivation was affected by the Mediterranean fruit fly and only really developed in 1944.

The early Easter Lily exports to New York — vital financially to Bermuda — became badly diseased from the late 19th century to the mid 1920s. Lawrence Ogilvie saved the industry by identifying the problem as a virus (not aphid damage as previously thought) and instituting controls in the fields and packing houses. There was a marked improvement by 1927 when he inspected 204 fields of lilies. The lily export trade continued to flourish until the 1940s when the Japanese captured much of the market.