268 



THE AGRICULTUHAL NEWS. 



AtOVriT 21, 191S. 



A cable message was received froui India oq July 29, to 

 tlic effect tliat the Indian Government had prohibited the 

 exportation of castor oil. This will mean tint the already 

 restricted supply of castor oil will be still more restricted, 

 ami the price will rise to a very much higher ligure than at 

 present. (The Deratrara Duly .4>x<m, August 5, 1918.) 



GLEANINGS. , 



The Food Production IJepartment in England has direc- 

 ted the attention of owners and occupiers of land, not in use 

 for the iirowing of food crops, to the sun flower, the seeds of 

 -which are valuable both as a source of oil and for poultry 

 food. The ash obtained from burning the sun flower steins, 

 leaves, and heads is rich in potash. It is important that this 

 valuable source of potash should be fully utilized. (The 

 fouriHil iif th' Board of Agiicultiin-, May I'.HS.) 



From the Rothamsted Experiment Stition advice is 

 given to farmers that in view of the restricted supplies of 

 nitrogenous manure every possible care should be taken of 

 the liquid manure. Long e.\perience of farmers, and direct 

 experiments by investigators alike, prove its usefulness as 

 a fertilizer. (The journal of f/u Board of A^riculfiire, 

 May 1918.) 



In a previous issue of this .lonrnal attention was drawn 

 to the manufacture of industrial alcohol in Natal. T/u- 

 Board of Trade foiirnal. June 6, 1918. states that it is 

 now announced that the first instalment of 10,iiOO gallons 

 of alcohol motor fuel has been placed on the market. This 

 is being succeeded by another iustalinent of 20,000 gallons. 

 Ether is added to the alcohol to render the fuel more volatile 

 Uj facilitate starting up. 



The New '/,^d\MiA Journal of Agricullur,., April 20, 1918, 

 has an interesting article on the iLfluence of btes on fruit 

 crops. It is stated that many fruit growers in the United 

 States .so recognize the gn at importance of bees in the pollin- 

 aiion of the flowers of their fruit trees, that they pay as 

 high as -So per colony to bee keepers who are willing to 

 bring their bees into the orchanl during the blossoming 

 period of the fruit trees. The fruit growers consider thit by 

 renting colonies of bees on such terras ea':h .season they get 

 good value. 



Accordingto Tlu Board if Trade /on rifi., July 18, 1918, 

 the 'luantily of coffee ex portnl from Venezuela in 19 17, as 

 shown by figures supplied by the Uritish Vice Consul at 

 •Caracas, WHS 7 28,€41 bags, as compared with 833,791 in 

 1916. These totals are for the whole country. The propor- 

 tion of the total exports shipped by German firms was con- 

 siilerably lower than in 1916. In this connexion the Vice 

 Orsul reports that German firms are now buying up coftee 

 •wirh the intention of storing it for shipment at the end of the 

 war to the depleted market of Germany. 



In the House of (.'oinmons, Srr K. Winfrey lately gave 

 interesting pirticulars respecting research work in animal 

 disease", and the immunization of animals from native and 

 ^topical diseases. He stated that the Board of Agriculture's 

 Laboratory at Addlestone is now practically completed, and 

 several scientific investig-itions hav.j been undertaken there, 

 in which useful results have beerr obtained. The best 

 method for immunizing British livestock agiinst tropical 

 .diseases before export are also cootinuoiisly under considera- 

 tion, and good progress has been made in that study. ( Tin- 

 Field, July 2"> 1918.) 



A note in The Fktd, June 15, 1918, states th it there are 

 indications that this year s Iruit crop in England wid be 

 insulMcient to supply the jam facicries. In view of the graa: 

 importance of sutiicieat supplies of jam for use by the Navy 

 and Army, and by the civilian population, the Food Produc- 

 tion Department is appealing to all cultivators to plant 

 immediately, on as large a scale as possible, vegetable mar- 

 rows for supplementing the fruit supply. The department 

 is informed that thousands of tons of ripened vegetable 

 marrows can be utilized during the coming season by the 

 jam manufacturers. 



Dr. Britton, the well known botanist, published in March 

 last, a Flora of Bermuda. The fonrnal of the A>?.' Ycrk 

 Botanical Garden, in a notice <>{ this publication, says that 

 the work contains descriptions and illustrations of all the 

 native and naturalized flowering plants, ferns, mosses, and 

 hepatics of Bermuda, togeilier wi;h descriptive chapters on 

 the lower cryptogams. In addition to the kinds of native 

 and naturalized plants, brief descriptions are given of the 

 cultivattil plants of the colony. This work, says the journal, 

 is perhaps the nnst complete liesjription of all the plants oi 

 a small area that has ever been published. 



The effect of the flowering of potatoes on the develop- 

 ment of the tubers seems to be that the effort of the plant 

 to provide for its reproduction by means of seeds results in 

 a corresponding weakness in its root growth, and in the size 

 and numbers of the tubers, deferring to e.tperiraents on 

 this question, the editor of the Queensland A,e:;ricultural Jour- 

 nal, in a puper published in the 'J'rfieal .le;rieulturist, April 

 1918, on the cultivation of the potato, stated that the crop 

 from which the blooms were not cut at all gave the worst 

 yield, whereas the best crop was yielded by i)lants that had 

 been prevented from blooming by being topped at frequent 

 intervals. 



At a meeting of the Royal S )ciely of Arts, May 1, 1918, 

 a paper was read by Mr. George Martineau, CO., on 'Sugar 

 from Several Points of View'. In the discussion which fol- 

 lowed, the (;;hairman Lord Balfour of Burleigh, said that if 

 the resources of the Empire were to be developed, a certaia 

 reasonaljle continuing security must be given for a period 

 long enough to encourage the investor to put his money intt 

 the industry. He did not think it was impossible for thi.s 

 country to do with cane sugar what the Germans had done 

 with beet root sugar, because in all jirobahilily the one wai a.^ 

 susceptible of improvement on riahi linfs as the otlier. 

 ijha /ournal of the Royal Soeie/y of Arts, .June 14, lil'.M.) 



