A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XVII. No. 428. 



BARBADOS, SEPTEMBER 21, 1918. 



Peice Id. 



CONTENTS, 



Pagb 



Acid Plicisphate rer.-vs 



Raw Rock Phosphate... iiOa ; 

 Agriculture in Barbados... 2t»4 j 



■ Cayman Islands. Hurri- 

 cane in 1916-17 ... 



Cotton, Varieties of 

 F.i^yptiiin Produced \>y 

 Mutation 



<S clones on August 22, 

 lOLS 



Fisli. Preserving without 

 Ice 



Gleanings 



. 2W 



2!I5 



2116 



29'.t 

 3(10 



Insect Notes: — 



Spread of the Mexican 

 Cotton Boll Weevil 

 in the United Sttites 2".I8 

 Items of Local Inter- 

 est 2t>4 



Margarine Industry of the 

 l'nite<l Kingdom, E.\pan- 

 sion of 290 



Page. 



Market Reports :«I4 



Medicinal Herb Growing 291 

 Milk, Sanitary, Produc- 

 tion of 2K\ 



Muscovy Duck, The ... 299 

 Note.- and Comments ... 2!lf> 

 Oil, A'cyctable, New Source 



of ... 



Plant Diseases: — • 



Ct'coimt Bud-rot 



Plant, Krt'ect of ( )ne Grow- 

 ing, on Another . 

 Hoyal Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society, 

 Briti>li Guiana .. 

 Rulilier in N(U-th Borneo 29"! 

 Scaly Ia',; in Fowls, Treat- 

 ment for 29" 



.Scientitic Research in Agri- 

 culture 3h;{ 



Sugar and the Teeth ... 291 

 Sugar-canes, Seedling ... 289 

 I'niversity Empire Study 'M'^ 



:i(2 

 :!(I2 

 .•'111 



292 



Seedling Sugar-Caiies, 



?N his Presidential Address to the Royal 

 'Agricultural and Commercial Society of 

 JBriash Guiana, which is referred to on 

 another page of this issue, Professor J. B. Harrison, 

 C.M.C} , M.A., discussed the general outlook as regards 

 seedling sugar-canes, with especial reference to their 

 stability, and the manner in which their production is 

 best undertaken. These remarks, embodying as they do 



the experience of one of the principal workers in this 

 field of enquiry, extending over the whole period since 

 the simultaneous discovery in the West Indies and in 

 Java of the seminal fertility of the sugar-cane, carry very 

 great weight: they are accordingly here reproduced in- 

 order to extend the publicity given to them, and to 

 render them readily available to the readers of the 

 Af/riculiural News. Professor Harrison said: — 



'In 1897 investigators generally were of the opinion 

 that once a new variety of sugar-cane was produced, 

 that after its first period of excessive vegetative vigour 

 had passed, its characteristics were fixed for all time- 

 Soon after the cultivation of the new varieties had 

 been extended over large areas, it became painfully- 

 evident to the majority of planters that their charac- 

 teristics are not fixed, and that in many instances, char- 

 acteristics which in the earlier years promised to make 

 a variety of sugar-cam- of high value both in field and 

 factory, were the first to fail. This tendency towards 

 senile degeneration renders it necessary to raise new 

 varieties of seedling canes year afcer year, in the hope 

 of having fairly good \arieties available to replace 

 others which may gradually fail. 



'Kxperience has proved to us that it is very easy 

 indeed to raise new varieties of sugar-canes which are 

 of high promise as plant canes. It has further proved 

 to us that it is relatively difficult to obtain sugar-canes 

 capable of producing good crops as plant canes and as 

 first ratoons: and that it is exceedingly difficult to 

 produce varieties which can be relied on to give satia- 

 factory crops of plant canes, 1st, 2nd, and .Srd ratoons. 

 Few indeed of the enormous numbers of new varieties 

 which are now raised each year in various parts of the 



