Tot. XIV. No. 339. 



Till: AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 





The las! « ith ■ handling of the crop. 



This subject, which invoh ant i >< > i 1 1 1 -< as picking, 



pulping, fei d pa most disappointingly 



short, h would be of interesl ■ ■ re found a full d 



tion i ' ii i ted in Southern 



In I. 1 . and in... , .1 1 employ ed in the 

 drying he crop. \ part from this criticism 



and the ion that more sj 



I., pests and d fidentlj state that the 



bulletin under review is Likel) e oi great service to 



who are in possession of estates, and to agricull 

 who intend embarking upon such an enterprise under similar 

 conditions to those obtaining in Southern [ndia. 



endea vour is beii 



e which h 

 i he European war. 



COCO-NUT AND PALM KERNEL CAKES. 



The value of these two by products of tropical crops as 



offs fi r domi -i ic animals, pail icularh cattle, is dealt 



■with very fully m two recent publications the Bulletin oj 



'/,, Imperial Institute, Vol. III. Xo. I, and the Journal of 



the Board < A m ultun (England), Vol. \\l. No. II. 



The former publication tre i derly f] 



the economic aspect u I ocating the 



bility of British merchants utilizing the enormous 



ies of copra and palm kernel which are now available 

 owing to the cessation of the trade in them with Gem 

 The result of doing 30 would be the production in Great 

 Britain of large quantities of residual cake or meal. 



Both journals endeavour to demonstrate the value ol 

 Material as foodstuff i'ir eattle. The following figures 



have ' d to show the comparative I I value 



of the two classes of cake under cot sideration: 



Fruiting Capacity of the Papaw. The que 

 of the advantagi d .1 from thinning out the i 

 fruits on the papaw article 



reproduced in the /'. I !i 15. 



An experiment was lit of 



twentj h were I ten unthi 



in btained 



whilst the unthinn 

 se in weight of 



thinned plants was verj i sidi : i ( 1 1 < -i- ■ was 



an accompanying rise in I he price, ■ hi 



crease of weighl and value was nol sufficienl to com- 

 pensate for the loss of fruits. T i mly to 

 the particular experimi ni ju tdi iril ed Tl 

 to say that with a small number of plan 

 the experiment may] 



scale a- indicated in the Annual Rep> rt : > 

 Horticultural Gardens, Lucknow, foi 1912, v] I 



that an acre of land carrying 1,000 plants each producin 

 •'. ten fruits after thinning may givi irofit to the 



grower. The difficult} is to hit on exactly the right amount 

 of thinning to get the greatest u. i patible with the 



greatest number of fruits. This '1 by 



practice, and in the meantime it is recommended to remove 

 i ally : such fruits as are obviou ly going to b 



Food units: coco-nut cake, 122; palm-kernel rake. 106. 

 Decorticated cotton seed meal contains l- r >7 food units and 



undecorticated 1 < >T food units. The value at Liver] 1 



(January 1915) of coco-nut cake was approximately £6 15«. 

 per ton, while that of palm kernel cake was just under £6 10*. 



Summarizing the value of the cakes in practical feeding, 

 the Journal of the Board of Agriculture states: 



1. Palm nut kernel and o > nut cakes or meals are 



valuable f Istuffs, particularly for milch cows, when they 



can be obtained of g [quality a i price which c pares 



favourably with the prices of such feeding stuffs as linseed 

 cake and cotton cake. Thej are also useful for replacing 



or horses, 1 il tri probablj ofless value fur fattening 

 bullocks, sheep and pigs 



2. Farmers should buy undei - 



a special attention to the percentage of oil, fibre, 



albuminoids and carbohydrates '< lej should insist on fresh, 

 well-made cake, and should i more than a three 



i s supply. 



The .ii>"\ e is, of cour e, < he I'.rit ish farmer, 



but it will prove of interest to pi ers and show that evei 



The Colour of Cowpeas. Colouration of the 

 coat of cowpeas and beans is a matter of some interest and 

 of no little importance from the commercial standpoint. We. 

 know that a dark seed-coat reduces the market value of 

 bean or pea-meal because of the unfavourable appearance it 

 produces; and we are aware that in the case of one species 

 of bean, dark colouration is indicative oi the presence ol 

 poison. The colour of cowpeas as investigated bj 

 Mann of the United States Department ol Agriculture (see 

 the Journal of Agricultural Research, April 15, L914) 

 more especially with the botanical aspect of the subject. Ee 

 shows that the testa is composed on the outside of a i a 

 and below this a palisade layer of very elongated cells. 



Underneath this is the so-called middle oi b -glass 



(so-called from the resemblance of each cell to the hape 

 of an 'hour-glass'); underneath this finally, is the so-called 

 basal-colour layer. The greatly diversified colour of 

 the different varieties of cowpeas may be reduced to two 

 factors: (1) an extremely uniform basal colour, pale yell 



copper-red, deposited in the ba al-coloured layer; (2) 

 a superimposition upon this basal colour of variously 

 irranged pigment areas in the palisade layer. It was found 

 that in most parti-coloured cowpeas of stronglj con 

 tints, the stronglj coloured areas have perfectly regular, 

 symmetrical palisade cells, whil 



or less strongly i ■ in form and irregular in thi 

 cavity, [n other wo tei i I raceable in all of t hese 

 cow peas ■' decided c< ■ i ilation bet ween the mot phol 

 the palisade cells and the suppression of the pigni 



cells. 



