Vol, XVIII. No, 441. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS, 



»9 



Cuban Export Committee for Sugar 



A communicaticm dated February 6, 1919, has been 

 received by the Imperial Commissioner of Agriculture 

 for the West Indies fiom the United States Sugar 

 Equalization Board, Inc., that at the earnest request of 

 the Cuban Government the Equalization Board has 

 appointed a committee, to be known as the Cuban 

 Export Committee, to act in behalf of the Equalization 

 Board in the matter of shipment of raw sugar direct 

 from Cuba to nations other than the United States and 

 those represented by the Royal Commission -of the 

 United Kingdom on the Sugar Supplies. 



This business will be purely local to Cuba, and will 

 be conducted in close conjunction with the Cuban 

 Government. 



Exports by the Committee will be regulated from 

 time to time by the ITnited Stutes Sugar Equalization 

 Board, and will be dependent upon the national require- 

 ments of the United States, due regard being given to 

 the necessities of other nations. 



These arrangements are made in order that the 

 Cuban Government may continue its trade relations 

 with countries that have in the past carried on commer- 

 cial intercourse with the Republic. 



Glycerine from Sugar. 



In the shortage of supplies of vegetable and other 

 fats, under which Germany suffered during almost the 

 whole period of the war, it was strongly suspected that 

 German chemists had succeedeil in producing glycerine, 

 an essential in the manufacture of explosives, from 

 other material. No definite information says the 

 Perfamery and Essential Oil Record. January 1919, 

 has come to hand as to whether this suspicion was 

 correct, but it is supported by recent investigations in 

 America. As far back as September 1917, American 

 chemists claimed to have discovered a process whereby 

 glycerine could be produced from sugar at one- fourth 

 the cost of manufacture from the usual sources. Doubts, 

 however, were freely expressed as to this estimate of 

 cost. 



The success of the American chemists has now 

 been established. The work \v.-ts done in the laboratory 

 of the Bureau of Internal Revenue, and definite infor- 

 mation has been published on rhe poin g by Mr. Mc Adoo. 

 Secretary, United State.'* I'reasury. It is claimed that 

 the process which was at once communicated to the 

 governments of the allies, would have insured ample 

 supplies of glycerine, had the demand for munitions 

 continued even in a much accentuated degree. 



It is stated that after three months of experimental 

 work, the chemists of the internal revenue laboratories 

 reported the discovery of a synthetic process by which 

 glycerine could be produced, but the cost could not be 

 gauged by small-scale experiments. The experiments 

 were therefore extended to a large industrial plant, 

 and by February 1918 the process had been tried on a 

 scale sufficently large to prove its effectiveness, both in 

 producing glycerine and as to the commercial poten- 

 tialities of its production. The process is said to be 

 % fermentative one. 



Death of Mrs. J. A. Hutton, 



In The Field, February 15, 1919, the death i« 

 recorded of Mrs. J. Arthur Hutton. Mr. Hutton was for 

 many years the Chairman of the British Cotton Grow- 

 ing Association, and his efforts to promote the cottoa 

 industry in the West Indies are gratefully recognized. 

 Mrs. Hutton accompanied her husband on a visit to 

 these islands in 1901. and is remembered by many 

 friends. We tender to Mr. Hutton our very sincere 



sympathy. 



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A Zoological Research Station in the Tropics. 



The New York Zoological Society Bulletin, 

 January 1919, states that the Tropical Research Station 

 of the New York Zoological Society will be opened in the 

 Bartica district, British Guiana, this month, and that 

 work will be carried on throughout the year. Dr William 

 Beebe, the Director of the Station, passed through 

 Barbados recently with a corps of assistants and artista, 

 and he will be followed during the spring and summer by 

 a number of well-known scientists, who will take advan- 

 tage of opportunities of carrying on various lines of 

 research in the tropical forests. It may be mentioned 

 that Prof H. F. Osborn. the well-known President 

 of the New York Zoological Society, accompanied 

 Dr. Beebe on a short visit to British Guiana. 



The permanent headquartei-s of the station, known 

 as Katabo, is at the junction of the Mazaruni and 

 Cuyuni rivers. Here bungalows and a large laboratory 

 have already been built. Especial attention will be 

 devoted this year to sending live animals to the New 

 York Zoological Park, as well as to gathering material 

 for a new volume oi Tropical Wild Life, the first volume 

 of which, by Dr. Beebe, was published last year. 



A review of this volume, to which the late Presi- 

 dent Roo.sevelt wrote an introduction, appears in the 

 same number of the Zoological Society Bulletin. 



.^ 



New Danish Invention for Making Yeast. 



The Weekly BvUetin of the Department of Trade 

 and Commerce, Canada, January 1.3, 1919, has an iater- 

 esting note on a new Danish invention for making 

 yeast without the use of grain, and at the same cime 

 without, producing alcohol. 



This method is called after the inventor, Rosen 

 kjaer, and is based on obtaining the largest possible 

 quantity of yeast with as small a formation of alcohol 

 as possible. Further, in the manufacturing of the yeasb 

 an eflfort is made to replace grain with other organic 

 raw materials, such as molasses. 



With the use of molasses as organic raw raaterial, 

 and with comparatively small amounts of inorganic salts, 

 the result has been reached that from one hundred 

 parts of molases, with a sugar consistency of about 50 per 

 cent., there is obtained forty parts of bakery yeast, while 

 there is formed only a trifling quantity of alcohol. The 

 quality of the yeast is said to be very satisfactory for 

 bakery use. It is of a light grey brown colour, and the 

 raising power for bread is fully equal to the common 

 alcohol yeast There is no reason why grain »nd 

 potatoes may noC also be partly used aa inorgau.j 

 material 



