A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



LIBRARY 



NEW YORK 



Vol. VIII. No. 19-3. 



BARBADOS, SEPTEMBER 18, 1909. 



Price Id. 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Page. 



Antigua Agricultural 



SuL-iety 302 



Blit'lits of Cotton, The ... 289 

 British Uuiana, Report of 

 Sugar-cane Experi- 

 ments 2!)3 



Brazilian Cacao 2'.)7 



Cacao Pod.s, Black Rot of 292 



Cacao, Soils tor 292 



Coffee, A Disoa.se of ... 292 



Colour of Soils 297 



Copra, Preservation of ... 297 



Corn and ( )ats for Horses. . . 302 

 Cotton and Linseed Cakes, 



Feeding Value of ... 295 

 Cotton Notes : — 



Cotton Exports from 



the \Ve,st Indies ... 294 

 Cotton Seed in the 



United States 294 



West Indian Cotton ... 294 



Egg Production of Fowls... 29G 



rii>re Machine, A New ... 293 

 Foresti-y in France and 



the United States ... 295 



Fungus Notes : — 

 Parasitic Fungi 

 Insects 



(xleanings 



Green M;iuuring 



Insect Notes : — 

 Transijortation 

 I Millions ... 



Jl/fovrsj/f / 1' 

 Market K 

 Mo-sijaitos 



OH 



if Scale 



.f 



How Spread... 



)i irts 



A New Parasite 



Comments ... 

 1 a Shade Tree, 



Notes and 

 Oil Pahu : 

 The 



Overhead Tran.sport 



i Points of a good Sow 



I Rice in British (iuian.-i .. 



I Stored Sugar, Effects of 



Moisture on 



I Students' Corner 



Sugar Indu.stry : — 

 I Effect ..fSolubleManure; 

 on the Soil 



299 

 30(1 

 29(; 



298 

 297 

 304 



29G 

 291) 



303 

 295 

 291 



3(K 



301 

 301 



291 



The Biicrhts of Cotton. 



HE editorial in the last issue of the Agri- 

 cultural Neva dealt with the ways in 

 which the cotton plant is likel}' to suffer 

 from the attacks of animal pests. It was shown that 

 these are especially likely to be in evidence during the 

 time that the plant is in a state of active growth, that 

 is when liberal supplies of food are at hand, and when 

 the tissues have not attained the hardness which 

 is generally a concomitant of maturity. It is well 

 known that attacks of this kind are not made by 

 animals alone, but also by other pests, which are 



generally termed ' blights ' : the consideration of these 

 has been reserved for the present article. 



These blights are really forms of plant life which 

 have not the power of absorbing energy from the sun's 

 rays in order to build up food bodies from simple 

 forms of matter provided by the air and the soil. They 

 are therefore dependent on food that has already been 

 formed by life-processes, and, consequently", must obtain 

 this either from living plants or animals, or from their 

 dead remains. In the latter case, if they belong to 

 such forms as can only feed on dead matter, their work 

 is beneficial, and really amounts to a kind of slow com- 

 bustion, by which waste organic material is prevented 

 from accumulating on the surface of the earth to an 

 indefinite extent. There are, however, forms which can 

 continue to exist on dead matter during the intervals 

 in which their host is not present, only to attack it 

 when it appears once more. With these, the process 

 of the combustion of the dead matter must be carried 

 out by artificial means in such a way that the blight 

 will be destroyed with the organic substances on which 

 it is feeding temporarily. This is one of the reasons 

 why special emphasis is laid on the advisability of 

 burning old cotton plants at the end of the crop. 



Blights may be broadly divided into two kinds : 

 those which are fungous, and those which are bacterial 

 in character. j\Iuch more is known about the diseased 

 conditions that are caused in plants by the former than 

 those which are due to the latter, partly because the 

 fungi are larger, and also because it is easier to trace 

 the connexion between their presence and the exact 

 nature of the damage, if any, that they are effecting. 

 Attention is drawn to the articles that have appeared 

 on fungi in the last three numbers of the Agricultural 

 J\~ews ; the perusal of these should give a broad view of 



