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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[March i, 1884. 



For JLiKixo cejien't for leather, take of common glue 

 aud American isinglass equal parts, anl place iu a glue 

 pot. Add water to cover the whole. Soak ten hours. 

 Thou bring the mixture to a boiling heat, and add pure 

 taunin, till the whole becomes ropy or like the white 

 of eggs. Apply warm. EufY off the grain of the leather 

 where it is to be cemenied;put the joint surfaces solidly 

 together; let it dry a few hours, and it is ready for use. 

 If properly put together the cement is as strong as the 

 leather. — Oil and Dnig News. 



A Fine C.it.ifoenian Baebeery.— At the first August 

 meeting of the Academy of Sciences, of San Francisco, 

 Dr. Kellogg exhibited flowering specimens of a most re- 

 markable "barberry tree from Big Canyon— the Berberis 

 Fremont! — which grows 20 feet high, aud its trunk is 'i 

 inches iu diameter. It was laden ivith golden blossoms, 

 and may be cultivated aud made one of the most desir- 

 able ornamental shrubs of CaUfornia. It thrives well on 

 poor, di-y, rocky soils, and is celebrated for its medicinal 

 virtues. Its sap furnishes material for making a most 

 powerful yellow dye. He presented a fibrous plant, as 

 yet unnamed, from Lower California, which jjushes up a 

 flowering stem from 5 ft. to 6 ft. high aud bears an ample 

 mass of small white blossoms. He also exhibited a plant 

 of the Comanch-a umbellata, belonging to the family of 

 saudal-wood trees, which has been found iu the Sierra 

 Nevadafoot-hUls, — Garden. 



Two WoETHT Bee Plants. — There are two plants which 

 are particularly prominent for nectar-producing qualities — 

 neither perhaps equal to thyme, but in its absence the 

 next best substitutes. These plants are the common 

 mignonette (Reseda odorata) and the Sweet Melilot (Meli- 

 lolua suaveolens. That this character is well deserved 

 let us call in the Editor of the Utah Pomolor/ist, who 

 deposes : — " There is no plant for bees within the range 

 of our knowledge as valuable for bee-forage as mignonette 

 And why? It will keep in bloom year after year if 

 not disturbed by frost, and it gives a longer period of 

 usefulness than any other plant. It gives more blossoms 

 in a given space, and therefore gives more forage than 

 any plants we have ever seen. Honey made from this 

 plant has the most delicious fragrance of any we have 

 ever tasted, and when it has been tested in market is 

 far ahead of Californian or any other hrands of honey in 

 worth, aud brings a much higher price. "SVe think that 

 one acre of mignonette will make enough of forage for 

 one or two hundred colonies of bees, even when there 

 is nothing else to work upon. We place mignonette in 

 the lead of all other plants we know as a crop to cul- 

 tivate as bee-forage." — Australasian. 



SoTOL. — Sotol is a pure alcoholic driuk, which is to 

 the Mexican what whisliy is to a Scotchman or au Irish- 

 man. It is limpid aud colourless, with a peculiar pene- 

 trating odour and a taste which, though a little bitter, 

 has been eonjpar(xl to the smoky flavour of Scotch whisky. 

 It would seem to have little deleterious effect on the 

 human system. The plant which yields it is a lily, known 

 as Dasylirion texumim. It is perennial in its growth, 

 having long green armed leaves, with a stout flower stem 

 some 10 ft. to 12 ft. high which is produced every three 

 or four years. Its home is "Western Texas, South-Eastern 

 New Mexico, and Northern Chihuahua. It sometimes 

 covers square miles of arid, stony slopes, growing best at 

 an elevation of some 51X1 ft. or 600 ft. The base of its 

 leaves and young stems are full of a sweet, refre.shing, 

 and nourishing saccharine matter, which is both food and 

 drink. The thick parts of the leaves are eaten baked or 

 boiled, and the sweet taste of the inner portions makes 

 these leaves much sought after for food. It is from these, 

 after a process of boiling an<l fermenting, that the alcoholic 

 liquor is distilI(Mi. and from one large head or basal part 

 of the leaf nearly one pint of this is to be procured. 

 The Mexican barrel of sotol, containing about 28 gallons, 

 is sohl at an average price of 15 dollars, and the liquor 

 is retailed at from 30 to 40 cents a quart. In au interest- 

 ing note on its use by Dr. Havavd, of the United States 

 Army, from which the above details have been abstracted, 

 he mentions that it is now-a-days very largely cousumed, 

 the Mexican revenue laws being very lenient in their 

 taxing of the sotol distilleries. — London Time.^. 



Keepino Nuts. — If you will simply bottle them — wal- 

 nuts shelled, but njts put into the bottles m their husks, 

 corking tightly, and seaUng with wax or roisii — you will 

 find when opened for use that they only require wiping 

 to be as good as when first put in. I have eaten nuts 

 so kept in the following June or .luly perfectly good. 

 In a dry cellar I have been told that thus treated they 

 will keep sound for two years. — S. l.—Avstrulasian. 



Fertilizer Expekiments. — In the discussion on fertilizers, 

 at the recent meeting at Newtown, Oonn., Mr. Sedgewick, 

 of Cornwall, said he thought that Dr. Atwater"s experi- 

 ments had saved the farmers a great amount of money by 

 teaching fertilizer manufacturers that less nitrogen is re- 

 quired for many crops than had formerly been supposed. 

 Nitrogen is the most costly ingredient used in commercial 

 fertilizers, and the most difficult at the present time to 

 obtain. It would be wasteful, therefore, to use a greater 

 quantity than is really needed, and such waste is exceed- 

 ingly costly to the farmer. As it is found that less nitrogen 

 is required, the price of fertilizers has been gradually 

 dropping in market, and this gain is greatly to the benefit 

 of the farmer. It enables him to buy more and to use 

 more, with a fair prospect of obtaining, a profit. One ob- 

 jection to the use of guano, he believed, was that it 

 contains a larger percentage of nitrogen than is needed, 

 and consequently a larger portion than farmers can afford 

 to pay for. A saving of 1 per cent in the amount of 

 nitrogen iu a ton of fertilizer will cheapen the cost about 

 four dollars. He thought the most profitable way to use 

 fertilizers is in connection with stable manure, the fertilizers 

 being compounded in such a way as to make the manure 

 and fertilizer together just meet the wants of the crops 

 to be grown. Exactly how the nitrogen is taken by plants 

 he did not attempi; to explain, but it is e^ddeut that soil 

 which is well filled with the tops and roots of colover and 

 otherplantscontaina large amount of nitrogen that the grow- 

 ing crop will in some way appropriate. —N'cff' England Farmer. 



OvBE-POTTiNG PLANTS. — Growers for market have long 

 since discovered what kind of plant is best for indoor 

 decoration, and they produce marvellously well-developed 

 specimens in a minimum of root space, by means of 

 high feeding with some of the soluble manures now eo 

 plentiful. It is well known to all who have indoor de- 

 coration to carry out how much better plants in small 

 pots backed full of roots not only flon-er, but retain 

 their flowers and foUage under the adverse conditions of 

 light and air to which they are too often subjected, com- 

 pared with those in larger pots only moderately well 

 rooted, as they are so liable to get waterlogged, and to 

 quickly lose both flowers and foliage. As a rule the pots 

 become covered with moss, or are plunged out of sight, 

 where evaporation is reduced to a mijiiinum. There is 

 not the same neces.sity for largo pots now that existed 

 a few years ago, when large specimen plants were fre- 

 quently to be seen grown solely for filling the houses in 

 which they grew, or possibly to figure o;".ce or twice a 

 year at some neighbouring flower show. Now, the great 

 increase iu the matter of indoor decoration necessitates 

 all available space being utihsed by plants that are use- 

 ful for that purpose. This has caused palms, dracieuas, 

 aud other fine foliaged plants to be extensively grown, for 

 in them we have a class of plants that withstand the 

 usage that such materials get in crowdeil assemblies ; and, 

 moreover, they form fine plants in pioportionally small 

 pots, that fit vases and other receptacles in which they 

 are required to be placed. The plea generally put forward 

 in favour of the use (A large pots is that they require 

 less frequent attention as regards watering in hot weather 

 than small ones ; but that is overboruo by the fact that 

 a idant iu a pot really too large, with a quantity of 

 cold, inert soil about its roots, is, iu far greater danger 

 of sustaining injury from careless watering than a plant 

 iu a small pot full of active fibres, for although the latter 

 may flag or droop from lack of moisture, it soon recovers 

 when water is supplied ; but an overpotted plant that 

 gets into bad health from over-abuudant loot-uioistuce is 

 by no means so readily recovered. I would, therefore, 

 strongly advise amateurs to rather under than over pot 

 their plants, for with the drainage iu good condition it 

 is surprising what a small quantity of soil will .sustain 

 even a large plant if liquid stimulants be intelligently 

 appUed to it.— Jamks Geoou. — Australasian. 



