Figures of small stock population are not reliable. We believe that the goat population
would decline if better methods of agriculture and husbandry were practised since goats
are destructive to economic plants and must be fenced out of improved pasture. It is al-
most certain that goats cause economic losses almost equal to the value of their increment
to the net product although they are of undoubted value to inhabitants of arid, non-produc-
tive regions. Although we can only go by guesswork based on observation, we believe the
goat population will tend to decline as higher standards of living are reached.

 Pigs, like goats, are at present mainly scavengers in the West Indies, living on what
they can find. However, more farmers are rearing pigs as a farm activity. They are
generally fed on coconut meal when feeding takes place, so that it is believed that their
expansion may be partially related to growth of the coconut industry. A recent report on
the pig industry recommended that it would be more economic to import feed and export
coconut meal, but it is considered doubtful that this change in the economic pattern of the
industry will take place.

 No section of agriculture in the West Indies has been revolutionized so much as has the
poultry and egg industry in the last decade. Here a major changeover has occurred from
the backyard poultry system to proper methods of feeding, rearing and housing. Unfortu-
nately, no comparable figures are available in two periods for Jamaica, Trinidad and To-
bago, and British Guiana and we have not found it possible to make an accurate assessment
of the extent to which scale of production, as compared with yields, is responsible for the
vast increase in supplies both of poultry meat and eggs that has taken place over this
period.