AJBRAK 



A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



NEW YO 

 BOTANIC 



Vol. XII. No. 279. 



BARBADOS, JANUARY 4, 1913. 



Peicb Id. 



Agriculture at the British Association, 1912. 



^HE recent publication of a review* of the 

 J proceedings in the Agricultural Section of 

 ^the British Association at Dundee in 

 September last give.s an opportunity for presenting 

 a summary of the matters that were (lealt with by that 

 Section. In choosing these, it should be explained, it 

 was decided that they should be confimd to four 

 subjects, two of which should possess a definite local 

 importance. The subjects selected eventually were 

 milk problems, animal nutrition, the application of 



*NatHre, December 5, 1012. 



meteorological information to agricultural practice, and 

 the sources of the food-supply of Great Britain and 

 Ireland. 



After the presidential address there came papers 

 on milk. In one of these it was contended that, where 

 interpretation of milk records from many cows is 

 required, a cow's milking capacity should be expressed 

 by a single and unqualified figure. Such figures as 

 total yield per calf, total yield per calendar year, or 

 average per week, always vary greatly from time to 

 time, for the same animal, because they are much 

 influenced by outside conditions. It is therefore 

 claimed that better results are obtained b\' the use 

 of: 'the maximum yield per day, the average yield per 

 day during the fifth to twelfth week after calving, 

 and the maximum yield per day maintained or exceeded 

 for not less than three weeks.' The conclusions of 

 a second paper possess their importance in the feeding 

 of cows. They state that when cows are given a large 

 (juantity of water, the amount of water is not increased, 

 nor the proportion of fat decreased, in the milk; and 

 that concentrated rations give the largest yields of 

 milk, although milk from cows fed on turnips con- 

 tained a greater quantity of fit — ^more in fact than was 

 in the original ration. Another paper drew attention 

 to the circumstance that the fat globules in milk vary 

 considerably in size, even in different milks from the 

 same breed of cows, and that as far as the authors 

 could ascertain, there is no evidence to support the 

 conclusion of Storch that these globules are surrounded 

 by a membrane. 



The opening of the discussion of the nation's food- 

 supply was the means of bringing forward several facta 

 that are of all the greater interest because they have 

 not perhaps been thoroughly recognized up to the 



