Vol. I. No. 5. 



THE AGRICULTUEAL NEWS. 



71 



It would now appear that sorgluun, in coniinon witli 

 some other plants, contains prus.sic acid, the poison 

 present in cassava (see A(/ricaltur<(l AV«'.'<, p. 5.) 

 The poison occxirs in the young plants, but gradually 

 disappears as the seeds rij)en. Obviously therefore, 

 cattle should nt)t be allowed to feed on young sorghum. 



A DiflBculty with Bois Immortel. 



Mr. J. H. Hart of the Botanic Gardens, Trinidad, 

 communicates the following extract from a letter, 

 expressing a ditficulty felt by some cultivators when an 

 attempt is made to manure young cacao growing close 

 to Bois Immortel : — 



' El iiiadre del cacao has many di.sadvaiitage.s. (l>iie of 

 them, for instance, is that you cannot (liiiih- of iiitiimriny 

 your young .supiilies in an old cacao estate with Innnortel 

 near by. A month after instead of manure you will tind a 

 big sjionge of Innnortel roots strangling your ]ioor little trees, 

 which die, or do not grow at all.' 



Growing Cacao from Cuttings. 



Extensive experiments have been undertaken at 

 the Ce3don Botanic tJardens to grow cawio trees from 

 cuttings. The only successful cuttings have been in 

 soil which is very sandy, practically free from all leaf 

 mould and supplied with running water at irregular 

 intervals. In one set of cuttings only those situated 

 along the course of a small stream, and subject to 

 occasional miniature floods, were .successful. Of the 

 cuttings tried only the woody ones about as thick as 

 a man's finger were of an}' use. 



Cacao in Ceylon. 



The BiHiril nf Tnali' Janrind extracts the follow- 

 ing from the annual report of the Planters' Association 

 of Ceylon : — 



'The crop for the [.ast year (1901), 47, 471 cwt., is 

 the largest on re>.'ord, and as a careful exannnatiun of the 

 increase of acreage does not lead to the conclusion that this 

 Ls to any ajjpreciable extent caused by new land coming 

 into bearing, it may Ijs assumed that the increase is due 

 largely to the recovery of estates from the attacks of canker 

 and other pests, and that, agriculturally, cacao is in a sounder 

 position than it luis l)een for some years.' 



Cassava Planting in the United States. 



Our old friend the Cassava plant, hitherto almost 

 exclusively grown in tropical countries, has lately 

 attracted the attention of ])lanters in the Southern 

 United States. With the aid of suitable manures in the 

 light soils of sub-tropical Florida and neighbouring 

 States, cassava has yielded cmpri exceeding anything 

 known in the West Inilies. At a recent Sugar and 

 Cassava Convention helil at Brunswick, Georgia, the 

 Hon'ble James Wilson, Secretary of the United States 

 Department of Agrieidture, delivered an intei-esting 

 address on the possibilities of cas.sava cultivation in 

 . the .south-eastern states. He laid stress on the fact that 



expei-imtnts had shown cassava to be a cheaper cattle 

 food than corn and a more prolific crop than potatos. 

 With this article as a sure crop, he did not see any 

 reason why Georgia and Florida should not raise beef 

 and pork, not only for their own consumption, but for 

 the markets of the world. He al.so pointed out that 

 cassava contains 80 per cent, of starch, and asserted 

 that starch works would be found very profitable in the 

 belt where cassava could be raised. 



World's Production of Sugar. 



The production of sugar in the world, in periods 

 of ten years, is summarized in the following table 

 cpioted by the Sv<i(i r Plunters Journul from statistics 

 published by the United States Department of 

 Agriculture : — • 



The rapid strides the beet-sugar industry has 

 made, as indicated in the last column, is most striking. 

 In 1840 less than 5 pur cent, of the sugar produced in 

 the world was beet sugar. By 1870 it had risen to 34 

 per cent., and 1900, to close upon ()8 per cent. Con- 

 versely, cane sugar, which in 1840 formed 05 per cent, 

 of the world's production has steadily thllen. until 

 to-day it forms only 32 per cent, of the whole. 



Sweet Briar as a Goat Exterminator. 



Sir W. 'J'. Thiselton-Dyer, F.R.S.. contribi-tes the 

 following interesting note to Aiifiire for Jiay 8, last: — - 



The introduction of the sweet l)riar into Australia, in 

 many jiarts of which it is naturalized, atibrds a striking 

 illustration of the mode in which the balance of nature may 

 Vie disturbed in a wholly unforeseen waj'. 



The fruit of the sweet liriar consists of a fleshy 

 reoeirfacle lined with silky hiirs which contain the 

 seeddike carpels. 



I extract from the Ar/ricu.fturaJ Gazette of A'ew South 

 JVa/e.^, Vol. XIII, No. 3, March, 1902, p. 313,' the following 

 note liy Mr. E. A. Weston, a wclbknown veterinary surgeon 

 of Launceston, Tasmania :-- 



' With reference to Bosa ruhhjinom, I thought it might 

 interest you to know that the hairy linings of the fruit 

 caused the death of a number of goats here by fornung 

 hairy calculi, wduch mechanically occluded the lumen of tJie 

 Iiowels. The.se goats were put on the land with the idea that 

 they would eat down the briars and ultimately ei-adicate 

 them, but the briars came out best and eradicated the gouts. 

 The cattle running on the land are also very fond of the 

 briar berries, and from time to time one will die, and on the 

 post mortent no pathological changes can be found in any of 

 the organs, nor do the hairy calculi appear in them, although 

 their various .stomachs are one mas-; of the hriar seeds.' 



