A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XVII. No. 424. 



BARBADOS. JULY 27. 1918. 



Peick Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Agraulture in Barbados... 



Anopheles and Malaria ... 



Bay Trees, Dift'erent Vari- 

 eties of 



British Cotton Growing 

 Association 



Cabbage Palm, The Two 

 Si>ec-ies of 



('otton and Corn in St. 

 Vincent, Co-opeiative 

 Purchase of 



Department News 



Dominica, Unusual Weath- 

 er in 



Forestry in Trinidad . . 



Gleanings 



Grape Culture in South 

 America 



(iround Provisions, Profit- 

 able Cultivation of ... 



Hookworm, Campaign iri 

 Jamaica against 



Insect Notes: — 



Eutomologj- in Relation 

 to Disease, Hygiene, 

 and Sanitation 



Page 

 22!) 



235 



237 



231 

 23.5 



232 

 233 

 23ti 



231 



232 

 234 



2.34 



Page. 



Item-, of Local Interest ... 22S 



Market Reports 240 



Notes and Comments ... 232 

 Para Rubber Seed, Com- 

 mercial Possibilities of 22'.! 



Plant Diseases: — 



Internal Disease of Cot- 

 ton Bolls in the West 



Indies 23S 



Plant Physiologyand Agri- 

 culture 225 



Rul)ber Substitutes... ,. 233 

 .Sisal Cultivation in East 

 Africa 23S 



Sugar Industry: — 



A Simple and Whole- 

 some Syrup 227 



Small Sugar-cane Mills 227 



ritra-Violet Ravs, Eftects 

 of on Plants .' 237 



Water-Lilies in .'>t. Vin- 

 cent 23(1 



'West Indian Bulletin', 

 Vol. XVII, No. 1 ... 232 



West Indian Products ... 239 



Plant Physiology and Agriculture 



)GRICULTURE in the etricfc sense of the 

 iword means the cultivation of the soil for 

 [the purpose of obtaining the yield of the 

 product ot plants valuable to man. It must have been 

 one of the oldest arts practised by members of the 

 human race. Probably, in the first instance, primitive 

 man selected for his agricidture the plants which he 

 liked best to eat, and then, by degrees, through selec- 

 tion and cultivation, better strains of plants were 



produced. Wild plants, it is well known, are greatly- 

 modified and improved under the influence of cultiv- 

 ation and selection, so that it is easy to realize thab 

 grer-t changes have been produced by centuries of 

 such treatment under varying conditions of soil and 

 climate. 



The adaptation of a plant to suit a new envirou-i 

 ment, or the modification of the en\ironmenti to meet 

 the requirements of the plant, is an achievement of 

 agricultural science of comparatively recent times. In 

 fact, such attempts must have been more or less em- 

 pirical, until the very modern development of plant 

 physiology. The scientific study of the effect of soil 

 and surroundings, together with the knowledge of the 

 vital processes of plants, is enabling modern planfc 

 physiologists to state fairly accurately on a priori 

 grounds what will be the behaviour of any particular 

 plant when subjected to the influence of different cli- 

 mates and soils, and vice versa, what the effect of any 

 given environment will be upon the plants subjected 

 to it. 



The importance of the scientific and practical 

 knowledge of plant improvement has been more and 

 more realized in the last fifty years. There is now 

 scarcely an important crop of temperate climates that 

 has not been greatly improved in various directions. 

 The work of plant physiology on tropical crops may be 

 said only to have just begun to show tangible results, 

 but the results already obtained demonstrate that this 

 science is destined to produce in the plants cultivated 

 in tropical regions results as greatly beneficial as it 

 has already produced on those of temperate climates 

 which have been longer under its influence. 



