An example of the development of cotton cultivation in West Africa, influenced by and following the opening of a railway, is seen in the Western Province of Southern Nigeria and in Ilorin; along almost the entire route of the line the agricultural population have taken up the cultivation of the plant. This has occurred even in those districts where other natural products were available for utilisation to a remunerative degree. It is therefore probable that the industrious population of the Northern Provinces, who have no such advantages, owing to the absence of oil palms, rubber, etc., would readily adopt cotton-growing upon a commercial scale. The Baro-Kano Railway passes, however, through an extensive tract of thinly populated country before reaching the localities from which a large supply can be reasonably expected, and this may delay the actual results. It would be inadvisable, in the meantime, to encourage cotton cultivation in those districts which are still remote, unless it were possible to buy the crops in advance of any prospective railway extension. The following statistical statement has been supplied by the British Cotton Growing Association, showing the production in bales from their ginneries, 1906-1909: Year. Lokoja. Ogudu. Total. Weight of Bale. Approx. lbs. 1906. Sept. 1st, 1905, to Aug. 31st, 1906 903 903 about 200 lbs. 180,600 1907. 16 months. Sept. 1st, 1906, to Dec. 12th, 1907 1,067 815 1,882 200 lbs. each 376,400 239 239 400 lbs. each 95,600 1908 84 147 231 400 lbs. each 92,400 1909. 8 months. To Aug. 31st, 1909 133 246 379 400 lbs. each 151,600 In 1908 the rainfall was deficient in a large part of the country, and the cotton crop, among others, suffered in consequence. A temporary check to cotton-growing in Ilorin province occurred in 1909 due to the demand for labour for the railway construction, and a subsequent one occasioned by the war; but in spite of this, the increase of cotton in Nigeria is to be attributed largely to developments in the Northern Provinces. Cf. _Bull. Imp. Inst._, vol. x., p. 480, and vol. xi. pp. 70, 165 and 656.[12] =CAPSICUMS.=—An increasing export trade seems to be becoming established in red peppers and chillies (_Capsicum annuum_ and _C. frutescens_), plants which thrive well in West Africa. In the Ilorin and Nupe Provinces, the plants are usually grown in the vicinity of houses, but in the Kano and Zaria districts they are frequently met with in irrigated fields. From the latter localities an almost unlimited supply could be obtained.