Vol. XVII. No, 420. 



THE AGRICULTUKAL NEWS. 



167 



THE VEGETABLE PRODUCTS FACTORY 

 IN DEMERARA. 



At a genera! raeetiog of the I'.dard of Agriculture of 

 JJritish Guiana held at Tieorgetown on May 14, 1918, the 

 Daily Argosy in its report of the meeting, states that Professor 

 .J. B' Harrison, C.M.G., Director of Science and Agriculture, 

 referred to the progress on the ^"egetable Products Factory. 

 He said thit orders had been placed in the United States 

 for machinery for the purpose of converting rice and corn 

 into flour, and it was hoped that the first shipment of this 

 macbinery would arrive in the coursse of a few week.s. The 

 question of a factory for convertini; ground provision into 

 flour was a somewhat diflerent matter. It had been 

 necessary for them to plan out all the machinery for such 

 purpose, and the estimattd cost in New York was $16,900, 

 which would mean a total expenditure of something like 

 ^•25,0ti0. The question was whether they were justified at 

 the present time in spending such a large amount. 



In connexion with this subject His Kxcelleiicy the 

 Governor, Sir Wilfred Collet, who presided at the meeting, 

 .said that he was informed from Can.ida that the Canadian 

 Government considered that the requirements of the Colony 

 of I'.ritish Guiana as regards flour were about ■22,000 bags 

 for two months, and licenses liad beea issued for the expor- 

 tation of that (piantity. As the Colony received 2,."iOO bags 

 in addition from the United States, they were only 1,500 

 bags short of their estimated full requirement. For the 

 present at any rate they were better off than had been 

 feared- 



Referring to the cultivation fif food crops. Professor 

 Harrison stated that in accordance with the Governors 

 instructions he had distributed about a ton of black-eye 

 peas and other leguminous food crop> to farmers. 



Food Hoarding. — The Food Commission in England 

 has issued the following statement, dated February 11, 1918; 

 'It is impossible t<> give any precise and general defin- 

 ition of food hoarding, or to lay down an exact standard of 

 supply which householders may reasunalily hold of the various 

 articles of food. Each individual case must be judged on 

 its merits- It may, however, be taken as a very rough 

 indication of the view of the Ministry of Food, that a fortnight 

 to three weeks supply of any of the staple articles of food 

 is not regarded as excessive, and, if already purchased, need 

 net be surrendered. Stocks for a longer leriod may, in 

 special circumstances, be held by people living m districts 

 remote from the source of supply, and subject to exceptional 

 difficulties of transport. 



The food hoarding orders do not apply to stocks of any 

 home-produced food, e.g. bacon, jam, bottled fruit, vegetables, 

 preserved eggs and the like. (The I'mducc .i\fjr/;iL< Rt-viciv, 

 February 16, 1918.) 



The Hawaiian sugar crop fnr 1917 was 694,65:3 short 

 tons. The average yield of cane per acre is given for 1917 

 at 42 tons. This is a wonderful showing, we presume better 

 than can be found elsewhere in the sugarcane world. 

 In 1875, when the Hawaiian production was but some 

 40,000 or 50,000 tons, it was seriously stated that it was 

 impossible of being increased beyond 75,000 to 100,000 

 short tons; it has however for the last three years 

 averaged about 600,000 short tons, or twelve times the 

 production of forty-three years ago, and six times more than 

 the maximum then contemplated. (The Lonisiaiht /%;«/■.•/, 

 April 20, 1918.) 



THE POST-WAR FARM TRACTOR. 



An interesting article on the above subject appears in the 

 FivM, April 6, 1918, from which the following is taken:— 



'It appears to be a common conviction amongs tthose 

 who have had to handle or control the agricultural motor 

 tractor that so soon as the war is over the whole design and 

 construction of these machines will be over-hauled and fresh 

 lines adopted, and we shall expect some British manufac- 

 turers to lead the way. In all probability this will be done 

 by fresh entrants into this line of engineering, for it is one 

 of the most difficult operations in commerce to induce or 

 compel a manufacturer to scrap the designs and abandon the 

 constructions he has spent much time and money in 

 producing and selling. The maker of the prewar machine 

 aimed at producing an all-purpo.se machine: we now see 

 that such a model has a too limited application and a more 

 limited sale. To construct a tractor efficient for road haul- 

 age and farm cultivation means compromising on both [loints, 

 and the amount of haulage possible with a small tractor 

 makes the compromise inadvisable. The popular tractor 

 will be a machine not intended "to do other than haul, plough, 

 and harrow, reaper and mower, drive a threshing machine, 

 and undertake other similar work. Haulage will be done 

 by a light lorry, of which we make no doubt that a number 

 specially designed for farm use will be on offer. The post- 

 war farm tractor wili have a true engineering layout, as 

 distinct from the present very inefficient form of exposed 

 gearing, underpowered, overweighted type. 



'No less important than the improvement of the tractor 

 must be the improvement in ploughs and other implements 

 designed for use with it. At the moment, the most accepted 

 view is that good tractor ploughing cannot be accomplished 

 at a speed in excess of 3 miles per hour furrow travel, and in 

 order to secure a maximum efficiency, the number of shares 

 in operation is calculated to admit no greater rate of travel. 

 We are not at all satisfied that this is a sound conclusion. 

 We do not deny the wisdom of the circumscribed speed to-day, 

 but we greatly question its acceptance in the near future. 

 The speed of the tractor is governed by the design of the 

 plough. 



'But if the plough be designed for a speed of 4 or 

 more miles per hour, there is no reason to apprehend that it 

 would not give results equally satisfactory with the present 

 slow speed instrument. The history of the marine screw 

 propeller leads us to surmise that the ploughing efficiency of 

 the high speed tractor will bf found to depend more on 

 the design of the plough fitted than on the quality of the 

 tractor or its drivers. Once this theory is established 

 and proved correct in practice we may expect to see high 

 pressure ploufjhing such as at present would be regarded as 

 impossible. The times rightly dtniand an improvement in 

 the design antl construction of farm tractors, but even 

 more urgent still is improvement in the implements with 

 which it has to work. We are confident that considerable 

 strides can be made in this direction by careful, methodical, 

 and exhaustive experiment which might well be subsidized 

 by the Government in order that patentees may not be able 

 to impose a heavy tax on the use of the improved implements. 

 In all probability it will be found that each diflferent quality 

 and consistency of soil will require its own special type 

 and design of higii speed plough or other tackle, and 

 it is for that reason we would ask for Stiite assistance in 

 order to shorten the time of evolution, and to prevent the 

 farmer from being made the trial horse for the agriculturil 

 engineer.' 



