3;:2 



TEE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



Otii.BKi: 19, 1918. 



GLEANINGS, 



As is -well known Zanziiiai and i'eniba >up('iy most ol the 

 dove.-: used in the world. From the Annual Report on the 

 Asricultural l^epartment of the Zanzibar Protectorate for the 

 year 191G which has Just btx-n received at this otfice it appears 

 that the export of cloves had risen from £li',7s:^i,149 lb, in 

 1910 to 25,lL'o,464 lb. in 191-"., although in 191C. it dropped 

 to 20,283.816 ft-. 



Mr. R. R. Bennett, of the L'.ritish Drug Houses, Ltd., iu 

 the course of a lecture on -Progress on Pharmaceutical 

 Products', said that the total number of vegetable drugs which 

 have become unobtainable owing to the closing of enemy coun 

 tries is remarkably small, but the cultivation of drug-yielding 

 plants should be prosecuted in the United Ivinttdom to the 

 utmost, and that the resources of our t'olonies should be 

 developed to an increasing extent for the supply of vegetable 

 drugs which can not be grown -a home (.V(j/i/r,\ August i'J, 

 U-IS.) 



Very considerable numbers ot odoriferous plants ar^^ 

 being experimentally cultivated in ihe United States at the 

 present time. In this connexion it may be noted that 

 government experiments conducted in Florida and Wisconsin 

 had shown that an acre planted with horsemint {Moiuvda 

 piictatu) will yield about W %. of essential oil. It has been 

 calculated that the couunercial production of this oil can be 

 made to show a profit of about .§16 per acre. {Poiiimcn 

 am/ Essential Oil Rco>ni, /i,/\ 2?., 19 1^.) 



Large quantities of pigeor, peas {Cajanus i/idiats) ■^k 

 consumed in India, under the name of 'dhalV. The dried peas 

 are soaked over night and then dried in heaps from three to six 

 •days in the buu, being stirred from time to time. \Mien thor- 

 oughly dry they are ready for the grind stone which removes 

 the outer skin and splits the seed. They are then in a 

 marketable condition. {Tropical Agriculturist, April 191S.) 



Tlu Tiiuts for May 16, 1918, records the success of an 

 experiment for making paper from sawdust. An Aberdeen 

 newspaper had been printed on paper which contained a large- 

 percentage of sawdust. The experimental reels were in every 

 respe't satisfactory and that newspaper. has been the first in 

 the United Kingdom to prove the practical utility of sawdust 

 paper, the output of which promises to have a far-reaching 

 ttt'ect on the paper scarcity problem. 



\\ith suitable labour and a fair market the South Pacific 

 Islands, according to the report of the Interstate Uommis.>ion 

 on the trade of the South Pacifies ofi'er a wide and promising 

 field for cotton cultivation. In New Caledonia and the New 

 Hebrides the Prench have already shown how pnmiaing is 

 this field from the point of view of production and consump- 

 tion. The variety of cotton cultivated is Gossypium pent- 

 riavum, a coarse, strong-grained cotton, largely used by 

 spinners for mixing with woolen thread. (The Hoard of 

 Trade Jflurual, August 'J 2. 1918.1 



Commenting on the report uii foreign trade of Ceylon in 

 the Blue Book for 1917 the H«ard of Trade Journal, 

 August 2y, 191<s, notes that for the first time rubber takes 

 its place at the head of the table, while tea, which was the 

 principal article of export previously, has the second place. 

 There was a strong demand for coco nut oil but the average 

 price of this article was lower ihan in the previous year. 

 The quantity of cacao exported was practically the same as in 

 1916 but here again the article showed a consideralile drop 

 in value. 



By cutting oil the supply of synthetic dyes from 

 ^iermany, the war has led to a marked revival in the demand 

 for natural dye-stufl, esi>i;cially indigo and fuHic, used res- 

 j)eetively for the blue and khaki cloth.^ lequired for naval 

 and military uniform. The output of indigo has greatly 

 increased both in India and .lava, the chief sources of supply, 

 and fustic which is obtained chiefly from .lamaica. Honduras, 

 and Brazil ha.s be^-n exportcid fjom -lamaica in greatly increas 

 ed quantitiei?. rihe Field, .\uguat 2), 191S.) 



in a review of a book on malaria in Macedonia 

 among pjriti.sh Imops it is stated in Xn.tur, , .July 18. 19P'-<, 

 that malaria in Macedonia has been responsible for a much 

 higher degree of invaliding than wounds have. 'I'he infection 

 is so widespread that even units at the b.is..- and on the lines 

 of comniunioAti'Mi are liable. U> the disease. The dittieulty in 

 dealing with the breeding gro'inds of anopheles in 'No Man's 

 Land' at tlie front is resp'insihle for the greater prevalence 

 of malaria am'ing.^t the troops in that area An outline of 

 the general hystem ob.ierved by the military medical author- 

 ities in dealing with the problem shows that the mea-nres 

 Adopted are Kah pysteinatic and thorough. 



The liulietiii (>/ the Italian Ciiamher oj Comiiurce in 

 Shanghai draws the attention of Italian spinners to the 

 advantage of importing cotton fn.m China in view of the 

 increasing shortage of the raw material. The average chineese 

 production is 2,l'(i0.000 bales (of .'lOO fc.) per animm, of 

 which 1,000,000 go to the Chineese spinners and 200,000 

 are exported. Japan takes about 100.000 bales, the United 

 States 50,000, and the United Kingdom .'i0,000. As regards 

 price it should compare favourably with American cotton, 

 c.i.f. Genoa. 



An article b> L)r. G P>. .\la,-on, in Uuiled Empire for 

 August 191t> gives the following interesting comparison of 

 area and population between the liritish West Indian colonies, 

 Newfoundland and New Zealand taken from the Colonial 

 Office list for 1917. The total area of the West Indies 

 exceeds that of Xew Zealand and is more than twice that of 

 Newfoundland. The total population is more than eight 

 times that of Newfoundland and more than twict- that of 

 New Zealand being over 2 million 'I'lie population per 

 s(iuare mile is more than three titiie>^ that ot Newfnim.lland 

 and uearU twiiv thttt of N'ew Zealiiui 



