A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XVII. No. 415. 



BARBADOS, MARCH 



1918. 



Price Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Antigua < iMvei'umeiit 

 Granary cSCi 



Basic Slag ;is AB't'Cting 

 AgricultMiul Devel<n<- 

 ments 80 



Becswa.x in British Ea.^t 

 Africa '.H 



Botanic (ianlcjis 81 



Breailfrnit wirli Devclupcd 

 Seed 8!i 



By-prciducts of the Sugar- 

 omc Indiivlry ..." ... 88 



Celeuy. <'uhivation fif ... 8!l 



Ciitton Notes: - 



Britisli Cotton Growing 



Association SG 



Cotton Exports from tin.' 



West Indies 87 



Sea Island cotton 

 Market - 80 



t'ulia, Hngc Central Fac- 

 tory 89 



Departnu-ntal Ueports ... 5t;i 



Dolichos lly!iiid.s in St. 

 Viiicenl 8.'i 



Paoe. 



Gleanings 



Huuuis Content of the 



Soil, and Fertility , 8.-. 

 Hutton, .1. A 8S 



Index to the 'Agricidttual 

 News' 8-s 



Insect Notes: — 



The Red Spider ... Ut< 



Items of Local Interest 8+ 



Manures, ( )tl'al and Dried 



Blood, Ise of 'M 



Market Reports !•<; 



Mules '.'1 



Notes and Comments ... 88 



Plant Diseases: — 



Prntecting Citrus Fruit 

 against Rots in Tran- 

 sit 



Tannias in thePhilippin 



Experiments with . 



I'ba Cane. Origin of . 

 West Indian Products . 



(14 



87 

 8.". 



Botanic Gardens, 



1 1 l-^RK is perhaps a tendency in the speech 

 iaiii] thoughts of most people to confuse 

 [botanic gardens and experiment stations, 

 aud to consider the terms as more or less synonymous. 

 In reality the origin and functions of the two institu- 

 tion =i are \ ery different. 



In the first place, botanic gardens are much the 

 older of the two. They can be directly traced back to 

 the gardens attached to the monasteries of Europe, 

 where medicinal herbs as well as nutritious vege- 

 tables wore cultivated, and their properties studied. 

 Perhaps one may not be far wrong in tracing 

 the origin of modern botanic gardens to the dawn 



of history, for we find not only in Hebrew tradi- 

 tions, but in early records of Egypt, Assyria, and 

 China that gardens wherein was 'every tree that 

 is pleasant to the sight and good for food' were desirable 

 possessions of the race. For instance, as Mr, Hill the 

 Assistant Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, 

 points out in an address delivered at the twenty fifth 

 anniversary of the Missouri Botanical Garden, the earli- 

 est garden of which we have any representation is that, 

 ofThothmes III in Egypt about the year B.C. 1,000 

 which was planned by the head gardener of the 

 gardens attached to the temple of Karnak. Perhaps, 

 however, the Chinese rather than the Egyptians are to 

 be credited with having first had the idea of a real 

 botanic garden, seeing that it is clear that several of 

 their early rulers despatched collectors to distant 

 countries to bring back plants which were cultivated 

 for their economic or medicinal value. From a list 

 of plants thus introduced by the Ernperor Wn Ti in the 

 second century B.C., the banana and the sweet orange 

 have beon identified along with many others by modern 

 scholars. 



Coming to a more recent period of history we have 

 ane.xact contemporary description of a monastic garden 

 of the ninth century with its attendant 'Physic (tarden.' 

 which was the direct origin of the gardens established 

 in connexion with the medical faculties of the Italian 

 universities of later centuries 



As the monks were bound to live for the most 

 part on pulse, vegetables, and truit, the cultivation of 

 the monastery garden was of the greatest importance 

 to them It is difficult to speak too highly of the 

 debt which botanical science owes to the care the 

 monks of the middle ages took of their gardens and 

 to their knowledge of drugs and plants. 



