Vol.. VIII. No. 190. 



THE AGllICULTUllAL XEW.S. 



339 



sized ?\I;irsliair.s Thre.shing Machine fitted witli a cbaft" fan, 

 Bhoosa rollev.s and Blioosa sliifters contiiiuouslj' for five 

 Lours witli a consumption of li^ gallons of kerosene per 

 hour. One man is required to operine it. 



E>;periinents in India show th^it it can plough li acres 

 of land that ha.s been previously lirokeii, per hour, with 

 a consumption of le.ss than 2 gallons of ' Chester Brand ' 

 kerosene oil, and uncultivated land at the rate of 1 acre 

 per hour with tlic same consumption of oil. 



The cost is £533. The Deinity Director of Agri- 

 culture, Bengal, saw the machine at work at Semapore and 

 reported thus : ' We were only able to test the ploughing, 

 as there was nothing to thresh and no pumps or ordinary 

 machinery to be worked. Soil tested by ploughing was 

 sandy loam. Two four- furrow ploughs were attached to the 

 back of the tractor, and eight furrows, 6 inches deep and 9i 

 inches wide, were ploughed at one and the same time. 



'Plough; — Cockshutt's (Canada) Fcnir Furrow Plough, 

 cost £20. 



' Work done : — 9 acres in seven hours. Cost of fuel per 

 acre : — Is. Id. Area ploughed per day of ten hours: — 13acie.'. 

 The oil tractor will not suit small holdings or paddy 

 cultivation, but where large holdings of high land cultivation 

 are concerned, and where labour is scarce and d^ar, the oil 

 tractor is an economical motive power for ploughing.' 



SCIENCE IN PRIMARY SCHOOLS IN THE 

 LEEWARD ISLANDS. 



The following abstracts are taken from the Annual 

 Hejiori of the Insjxctor of ScIukiIs for the Leeivard 

 Islands,' for 1908-9. This was drawn up by Mr. W. 

 Skinner, 11. A., then Acting Inspector of Schools for 

 that colony : — • 



There are not so many schools ms formerly where the 

 complaint has to be made that the lessons in Elementary 

 Science are mere parrot work, or a catechism after the style 

 of ' Lessons in Common Things ', and ' Mangnall's Questions '. 

 In some few schools, teachers have not got beyond this, but 

 only in a few; most of the schools are provided with object- 

 le.sson sheets with pictures of the animals which are the 

 subjects of the lessons. Wherever pictures were not found, 

 the matter was brought to the notice of the managers, and 

 doubtless before the next e.xamination tiie desired sheets will 

 be provided. So many publishers nowadays issue well 

 executed drawings, in colours, of the domestic and other 

 animals which are prescribed by the code as subjects of the 

 lessons, and the prices are so moderate, that there ought to be 

 no difficulty in every school posse.ssing some of these sheets, 

 and yet I regret to say there were some schools whe-e there 

 were no object-les.son .sheets, and the teacher was obliged to 

 u.se the very small woodcuts of animals found in the Tropical 

 Headers. The lessons, as a natural consequence, afforded no 

 satisfactory training for the children's powers of observation, 

 and a badly equipped school became also an inefficient oie. 



In the iliddle Division, most of the teachers had studied 

 the Hints to Teachers for teaching science in the Middle 

 Division, and the work was fairly creditable ; only in a few 

 instances did I find that lists of terms, meaningless to the 

 children, had been committed to memory. In the Upper 

 Division, in a general way, the lessons on plant life, and on 

 the structure and functions of the different parts of a plant, 

 were well given, and the subject was fairly understood ; there 

 were faults, however, in the logical treatment of the subject, 

 and the order of the questions asked. I did not find so great 

 a tendency to make use of difficult scientific words as on 



former occasions. 



There are in the colony thiity-si\- recognized school 

 gardens, as follows :---.\ntigua, 1 'J : .St. Kitts, JS ; Nevis, 6 ; 

 Dominica, 4 ; Montserrat, 6. In nearly all the gardens the 

 children now take a keen interest, and good results in the 

 growing of the vegetables have been obtained in most cases. 

 During tlie year new tools were supplied to six schools. 

 I did not find that the record of work done was kept 

 very .systematically at any of the schools examined ay me. 

 For the ptirposes of the grants for .school gardens, the.se 

 records should be kept carefully written up to date. All 

 schools where there are school gardens have now received 

 record books, in which entiies should be made everj' day on 

 which work is done. These books should be submitted to 

 the Inspector of Schools at the Annual Examination, if 

 a grant is desired by the teacher. 



Grants have been awarded for this work as follows : — 

 Antigua, to 10 schools ; St. Kitts, to I schools ; Nevis, to 

 5 schools ; Dominica, to 4 schools ; Montserrat, to 6 schools. 



IMPURITIES IN SULPHATE 

 COPPER. 



OF 



The Board of Agricidture and Fisheries for the United 

 Kingdom has on several occasions drawn attention to the 

 importance of using pure sulphate of copper when making 

 Bordeaux mixture, or when using it either for the destruction 

 of charlock, for dressing wheat, or for the cure of foot-rot in 

 sheep. In purcha.sing it, care should be taken to demand 

 a product of 98 per cent, purity, while the article offered as 

 ' agricultural ' sulphate of copper should be scrupulously 

 avoided. The usual adulterant is sulphate of iron, which is 

 much cheaper. An easy test for the presence of iron in 

 sulphate of copper is to dissolve a little in water and add 

 ammonia, constantly stirring until a deep blue liquid is 

 formed. Any quantity of brown flocks floating about in 

 this blue liquid indicates the presence of so much iron that 

 the sulphate of copper shoukl be subjected to a proper 

 analysis before use. 



Daring the past year, the Board has had evidence that 

 impure sulphate of copper continues to be sold in consider- 

 able quantities. Early in 190.S, the Crown Agents for the 

 Colonies stated that certain wholesale chemists, in executing 

 an order for sulphate of copper for the Agricultural Depart- 

 ment of one of the Crown Colonies, sent sulphate of iron 

 containing about 10 per cent, copper sulphate; and that in 

 reply to the representations of the Crown Agents, they stated 

 that this was the usual article sii[)i)lied under the designation 

 of sulphate of copper for agricultural purposes. 



In consequence, eighteen samples were purchased by 

 Inspectors of the Board from chenusts in different parts of the 

 country. Of these, twelve were commercially pure blue vitriol, 

 or sulphate of copper. In two cases the description sulphate 

 of copper, or blue vitriol, was applied to articles containing 

 51 '5 and 392 per cent, respectively, of sulphate of iron. In 

 these cases the Board directed enquiry to be made with 

 a view to prosecutions under the Merchandise Marks Acts. 

 One sample, described as powdered vitriol, contained 786 

 per cent, of sulphate of iron, and was coloured with Prussian 

 blue. Another .sample, described as vitriolized wheat dressing, 

 contained 66 per cent, of sulphate of iron, and two other 

 samples, sold under a fancy name, contained 76 per cent, and 

 56 per cent., respectively, of sulphate of iron. 



It is evident, therefore, that farmers should exerci.se 

 considerable caution in ]iurchasing sulphate of copper. (The 

 Journal of the Board of Agriculture, September 1909.) 



