

A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



NEW > 



BUT AN 



gAHB 



Vol. XII. No. 281. 



BARBADOS, FEBRUARY 1, 1913 



Prick \d. 



CONTENTS 



Pack. 



Paob. 



Agricultural Dovel(i|niit'iil 

 ill the United K'lig- 

 dom 4.'! 



Barbados Education (Jazette +1 

 Boards of Industrial Tr;iiu- 



ill!,' 40 



British Guiana, Seienoe 



Instruction in 41 



Cacao in Douiinica, Suc- 

 cess in Bnddiii.; ^5t> 



Chlorosis ill rianls 40 



Oor.ton Notes : — 



Tlie Future i f Ameri- 

 can Cotton 38 



West Indian Cotton ... ."jS 



Deiiartiiient News 45 



Dei>artmental Reports ... 3!( 

 Fungus Notes : — 



Recent Work on a plant 



Disease 46 



Gleanings 44 



](_iias>, Iiiiiiri>voiiient "f 



1 a I'seful 41 



Insect Notes : — 



A Note on Insect Pests in 



tlie Virgin Islands ... 42 

 Suiinuary of Entomo- 

 logical Information in 

 tlie .Agricultural News, 



1012 42 



Italy, Agricultural ICduca- 



timi in 45 



Market Reports 48 



Notes and Comiiieiits ... 40 



l5hi/,ol)ia in the .Soil 41 



Uul)l>er, Tapping and Com- 

 position 4li 



Students' Corner ... 45 



Sugar-cane E.xperiinents 



in Antigua, 1911-12 ... o5 

 Sugar Production in Peru 35 



W,ater and Life, I 33 



West Indian Products ... 47 



Water and Life 

 I. 



iATEK is found in all living tissues, and 

 ;this circumstance, together with the results 

 J of experience, leads to the conclusion (which 

 few would dispute) that water is necessary to life. 

 Organized experience, or experiment and observation, 

 teaches also that water is the substance found most 

 abundantly in living cells. As water is so necessary 

 and so abundant where life is found, enquiry may well 

 be made as to its soiu-ces; as to the uses that it fulfils in 

 those ultimate divisions, called cells, of the tissues of 



plants and animals; and to the way in which it is 

 applied to the purjioses that cause it to be indispensable 



to life. 



An exhaustive answer to this enquiry has beett 

 made recently in a jiublication* presenting results 

 that will be largely drawn upon, in this and 

 a following article dealing with the subject. In the 

 order indicated already, the sources of the water 

 required b}' living beings will be considered first. The 

 most obvious of these are the external supplies, which 

 are drunk by aninials and consumed in their food, and 

 taken from the soil by the roots of plants. The n-sb 

 of the water needed by living organisms is produced ia 

 those beings by changes, called metabolic changes, 

 brought about by respiration. This important result; 

 of respiration, r.lone, makes it useful to know in what 

 the process consists and how it takes place. 



The most familiar kind of respiration is thafc 

 entailed in the breathing of animals, resulting as is 

 well known in the consumption of free oxygen and the 

 production of carbon dioxide and water. A simple 

 study of the life-processes in plants shows that a similar 

 action takes place in the leaves; though the produciioa 

 of water in this way for the use of plants often esr.ipes 

 notice. This is called direct re.spiration. There is also 

 another kind of respiration, called intramolecular rcsjiira- 

 tion, because it takes place between the smallest parti- 

 cles of matter, or molecules, in the cells, in plants as well' 

 in ar'imal.'. In this kir.d nf respiration, the oxygen used 

 is not i'ree, like that in the air, but united to other 



* jriscunsiii Ecscanli BidUtin, No. 22. 



