Our first paying industry was a dairy, which now yields an income of one hundred dollars per month. Apparently this can be still further increased, as we have more calls for our butter than we can supply. It is used by many of the government people eighty miles away, at Blantyre. Our carriers are met midway.
Last year we planted twenty-five acres of cotton, from which we had a crop of two tons. It paid well on account of rather high prices. This year we have in seventy acres. Cotton-growing is now taking a leading place in Nyasaland industries. The rubber industry also is a rising one.
A GOLD COAST SCHOOL
You would be interested in seeing our school men and boys hoeing the rows of cotton. The hoe has a blade five by eight, with a handle eighteen inches long. A young tree is cut at the ground, giving a strong, heavy base for inserting the sharpened hoe shank. The shank is heated red-hot, and burned into the handle at the proper angle, about thirty-five degrees.
We have sent to Blantyre for a two-wheeled cultivator to try this year, and intend to do some plowing next season. We are now breaking oxen for this work.
As our school and farm work develop, we must have more helpers. We now have 1,521 pupils enrolled in our two mission stations, with their twenty-six village out-schools. We employ fifty-five native teachers and assistants in this work.
We are calling on our Mission Board for an appropriation for printing a reader and hymn-book, and series of outline Bible lessons for use in our village schools. We have duplicated these with the typewriter, but now they should be printed.
