It was stipulated that the cost of building and maintaining the experiment stations was to be borne by the home government until the results obtained justified their being supported by the colonies. In addition, a grant of money was authorized by Parliament to take care of the pressing needs of the planters during the year before the Brussels convention became effective. With improved steamship facilities between Jamaica and the mother country, the volume of the trade in fresh fruit was greatly increased. [Illustration: _Photo by H. H. Cousins_ MORELANDS SUGAR MILL, VERE, JAMAICA] [Illustration: THE FLEET, MORELANDS, VERE, JAMAICA] In 1907 the value of the fruit shipments in pounds sterling was as follows: Bananas £842,689 Citrus fruits 90,468 as against Sugar 122,328 Rum 98,923 On January 14, 1907, an appalling earthquake occurred. The buildings in Kingston and Port Royal were destroyed or badly damaged and about one thousand people were killed. In 1906 the area under cultivation in Jamaica was 750,000 acres and of this only 26,000 were devoted to cane. Sugar planting has been in a stagnant condition for years and only a limited number of the estates that still carry on the industry are making money. Many have stopped growing cane entirely and have turned to bananas, cocoanuts, coffee or cattle raising. In certain districts there is plenty of fertile alluvial land, ample water and cheap labor, but proper cultivation is lacking, so that the results are far from what they should be. Planting simply consists of sticking a piece of cane stalk in a hole in the ground and very little ploughing is done, consequently the weeds are never under control. It takes about twelve months for the cane to ripen and the yield per acre varies widely, ranging from ten to forty-five tons. The average may be taken as about twenty tons per acre. The island boasts of three central factories and eighty-two small mills, only twelve of the latter having vacuum pans. The others make muscavado sugar and rum. In the operation of boiling by no means all of the sugar is extracted, as a pure liquor is needed for the manufacture of good rum and quite a large amount of cane juice is made into rum direct.