1 66 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[September i, 1883. 



I am tiiUl that ilming tbi> cyclone of a few yeiu-s ago, the 

 whole surface of the sea was covered with the mangled bodies 

 of dragm-Hies for miles out to sea, but that since theu very 

 few have bei-a seen. Of Lepidoptera I caught many siwcies 

 biith diurnal and noetui-nal, some very handsome, of wliich 

 1 sent a samll colh'ction to London in 1879. The Atlas Moth 

 is ral'.ver common. Orthoptora were represented by the 

 ubiipiitous cockroach, and a few Acridlkhe. 



Mr. llo.ss told nu' tliat on several occasions the large fruit 

 bat. calleil the Hying iu-f., has reached the islamls, and once 

 a p.air arrived together, but died, from exhaustion apparently, 

 soon after arrival. lUider favourable circumstances, as in 

 the ease of an unusually strong pair, these may yet be- 

 come inhabitants of the islets. 



Tlvrre are, I believe, considerable additions to the flora 

 since Mr. Drawin's visit. It is only within recent years tliat 

 the islands have become so greatly covered with coco.auut 

 plants. Their original vegetation consisted principally of 

 "iron wood " (sideroxylon?) and other trees, and of low 

 shrubs. There wei-e nearly all burned out by accidental 

 fires, one of of which burned tor thi-ee months.— Hexuv O. 

 FoKiuis.— Fatuuaba, Timor DiUy, January il.—X<iture. 



DEAD BR/VNCHES DETRIMENTAL. 

 I have been asked whether the statement lately going 

 the rounds of the American papers that " a dead branch on 

 a tree makes almost as great a strain on the main plant 

 for moisture as does a living one " is accurate or not. The 

 statement is coupled with another referring to its practical 

 ajiphcation in tree culture, the conclusion being thiit every 

 a. -ad branch " should be at once cut aw.ay." Briefly it 

 might be answered that the first statement is true in the 

 main, and that, without any doubt at all, the conclusion 

 is a wise one, and ought to be followed in practice. To 

 explain this matter will take considerably more space, and 

 in order to understand it we must go to vegetable physio- 

 logy and inquire into the nature of the evai)oration of 

 water from plants. It was long supposed to be a physio- 

 logical process, and was considered to be entirely different 

 from ordinary physical evapor.ation. As long as this view 

 was hebl the process was called transpir.ation, to distin- 

 guish it from the physical jn-ocess. The breathing pores, 

 the stomata, which occur hi the epidermis of all leaves 

 in great number.s, were supposed to be organs of trans- 

 piration, which was considered to be one of the most im- 

 portant fmictions of the leaf. 



"Within a few years, however, our knowledge of these 

 matters has been greatly increased, and we now know that 

 the escape of water from the leaf does not differ in any 

 way from the evaporation of water from any other nioist 

 siu-face. A leaf isi mass of cells, every one of which is 

 gorged with watery matter, which in a dry atmosphere, 

 as a matter of course, tends to escape. The epidermis, 

 composed of drjish impenious cells, which entirely sur- 

 rounds the watery cells of the leaf, would prevent almost 

 completely the evaporation of water from the latter were 

 it not for the breathing pores before mentioned. These 

 pores are for permitting the free ingress and egress of 

 gases, particularly oxygen, carbonic acid, and probably, 

 also ammonia. Now, when the pores are open for their 

 legitimate purpose it happens that more or less water 

 escapes if the air is dry. If the air happens to be very 

 moist the loss of water"through the breathuig pores is very 

 little, or even none at all. 



We may put it in this way: The leaf loses water simply 

 because it is a watery structure ; its epidermis is designed 

 to prevent this loss, and the breathing pores with their 

 power of opening and closing are for the same purpose. 

 A leaf instead of being an organ of evaporation is actually 

 a structure in which evaporation is quite successfully 

 checked. Careful experiments made under my supervision 

 in the Iowa Agricultural College in 1880 by Miss Ida Twit- 

 ehell, a graduate student, demonstrated that the evapor- 

 ation from a moist piece of dead wood was exactly hke 

 that from a living leaf. Now, when a dead branch is long 

 enough to keep coutintually moist in the interior it will in 

 drv air constantly lose water by evaporation from its sur- 

 face. This water so lost is taken from the tree, and must 

 have been supplied directly or indirectly by the living por- 



tions. Moreover, it must be remembered that a li\'ing 

 branch is well protected against loss of water through 

 evaporation by the epidermis which covers all its surface 

 when young, or the impervious coi'ky bark which is alw.ays 

 found on it when older. When a branch dies, these pro- 

 tecting devices soon fall into decay, and the water, so cai'e- 

 f uUy guarded by the living ))iu-ts of the plant, is wasted 

 by evaporation.— PnoF. 0. E. Bessey (in the A'ew York Trih- 

 vne). — Joufitid of Ilurticitltto-e. 



CULTIVATION OF THE ARTICHOKE. 



(Ci/iunti Sco/t/mus L. Compositif J>C.) 



This vegetable is a hardy perennial, a native of Barbary 

 and South of Europe. It appears to have been esteemed 

 as a veget.able from very early times, as Phny speaks of 

 it as having been cultivated by the Romans. The enlinar-y 

 part is contained in the immature flower heads. The 

 broad fleshy {lower receptacle, termed the bottom, and the 

 thick base of the horny involucral scales are the parts 

 eaten. It succeeds with little care and trouble, and is often 

 met with in the gardens of Europeans, but seldom in those 

 of natives. 



On the plains the flower heads begin to appear in March, 

 hut are most plentiful in April, and continue in season 

 until the middle or end of May. The plants are raised 

 from seed or by suckers. The former should be sown broad- 

 cast in beds, from the beginning of August to the end of 

 September. The seedlings are very hardy, and seldom sutfer 

 from damp ; the seeds should, therefore, be so'wn as soon 

 as an opportunity occurs after the beginning of August. 

 "When they have made four or five leaves they are fit for 

 transijlauting to where they are intended to be grown. 

 They love a deep r.ud rich soil, an<l when preparizig the 

 ground for their reception it .should be trenched 2 feet 

 deep and liberally manured. "When time and Labour does 

 not allow of such an effective preparation of the ground, 

 holes 2 feet broad and 2 feet <leep should be dug, ami 

 the soil thrown back liberally mixed with old manure. 

 The plants should be transplanted at 2^ feet apart, in 

 rows 4 feet asunder. They should be watered regvilarly, 

 and the soil between the plants occasionally stirred with 

 a fork. "When raised by suckers the strongest should be 

 separatetl from the old j)lauts in Septemiier, and at once 

 transplanted at the same distances apart as given for seed- 

 lings. They shouUl be anmially transplanted in a fresh plot 

 of ground. If this is not done the flower heads decrcise 

 in size, and by the third season are all but worthless. It 

 is a good plan to raise one-half of a plot from seeds and 

 the other by suckers. The latter should be annually thrown 

 aw,ay after the flower heads are past use, and the former 

 preserved for the production of suckers tor the foUowing 

 season. Suckers flower sooner, and the advantage gained 

 is a crop of flower heads a fortnight or three weeks earli- 

 er than when seedlings only are used. This vegetable 

 does not degenerate if seed is saved from flowei-s pro- 

 duced by the leading shoots of the plants raised from 

 seed, a" few of the largest flowers should, therefore, ho 

 annually reserved for this purpose. 



On the hills the plantation need only be renewed every 

 three or four years. M'hen a stock has once been secured 

 from seed, this should be done every third or fourth year 

 by suckers, and the same plan followed as described for 

 the plains. AVhen the plants have to be raised from seeils, 

 these latter should be sown in March or April, and trans- 

 planted as soon as they have made four or five leaves. 

 At elevations below 5,000 feet suckers should be trans- 

 planted in September, but above that elevation, and especi- 

 ally if on a northern aspect, it should be done in March 

 or April. At ele\atious above 0,000 feet, the stools should 

 be protected from frost by a covering of stable litter or 

 half-decayed leaves. lu spring, when all danger from frost 

 is past, the covering material should be removed, and a 

 quantity of old manure forketl in between the plants. 

 During the operation unco\'er the stools and remove all 

 the suckers except two or three of the strongest. At 

 lower elevations manuring and removing suckers should 

 be done in autumn ; in spring and during their progi-ess 

 all that requires to be done is weeding and occasional 

 stirring of the soil. — W. G. — Indiun Funster. 



