THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



July 24, 1909. 



GLEANINGS. 



The Grenada Scairhli;//if nnnounccs that tlie cultivation 

 of tobacco will jshcrtly be t'stalili.shed ou commercial lines in 

 lliat Colon}'. 



Though accurate information is not yet to hand, it is 

 exiiected that about 300 acres of Sea Island cotton .vill be 

 l)lantcd this year, in Antigua. 



A demand for consignments of limes, jiine apples and 

 liananas from the West Indies is announced on the part of 

 Thomas Nash, 72, Octagon, Plymouth. 



A proposal has been made for the establishment of 

 a Professorship of Agricultural Science at Melbourne 

 University, at a salary of £1,000 a year. 



' The first step in conserving moisture is to put the 

 soil in such a condition that it will permit the rain to enter 

 freely, and into a good, deep reservoir '. ('/'iniisnni/ Aijri- 

 eidtuxtl Joarnat.) 



A mosquito exterminator consisting of a jiowder for 

 fumigation made from local vegetable products, chieHy Mar- 

 gosa leaves, is being tried in malarious districts in Ceylon. 

 It is .said not to contain any deleterious ingrc'dients. 



In a paper by Profes.sor I'.ernthsen, on the fi.xation of 

 atmospheric nitrogen, read before the Seventh International 

 Congress of Applied Chemistry, it is stated that considerable 

 quantities of 'air saltpetre' will shortly be put on the 

 market and that, probabl}-, within a few years, the annual 

 output will reach 100,000 tons. 



The Curator of the Botanic Station, Antigua, reports 

 that, during the month of .June 190'J, there have been 

 distributed from that Station the following plants and seeds. 

 Plants : lime, 6-50 ; decorative, 175 ; mahogany, 46 ; C'asui- 

 rina ef/iiisflifnlia, 1 1." Seeds : Barbuda bean, 100 lb.; broom 

 corn, 12 lb.; miscellaneous, 13 tt). 



The June shipments brought the total export of 

 Trinidad cacao for the half-year to the record quantity of 

 34,472,394 ft., being 4,747,032 ft. more than at the same 

 date last year, and 1,580,.t70 ft. over the previous record iu 

 1904, when the shipments to June 30 were, 32,891,824 ft. 

 (Proceediiios of tlie A<ir)cnltii}(il Socii'ti/ of Trinidad and 

 Tohaijo, June 1909.) 



In Fci/smannia (an agricultural publication of Java) 

 information is given iu connexion with a littledcnowu variety 

 of coffee whicli grows in Uganda. It is stated that this 

 appears to be very ))roductive, of quick growth, and little 

 liable to be attacked by disease. The opinion is further given 

 that this variety is cpiite up to the standard of Coffea rofjvsfa, 

 and is probably superior to it on claye}' soils. 



Ill icliitinii to manurial experiments with cacao, it is 

 noted in the Circular'and Agricultural Journal of the lioval 

 llotanic Gardens, Ceylon, Vol. IV, No. 1-5, that, at the 

 Experiment Station, Peradeniya, it has been found nuich 

 more satisfactory to take the yield from July 1 of one year 

 to June 30 of the next, instead of that from January to 

 December. In tliis way, the re.sults obtained by the use of 

 the different manures are more accurately indicated. 



The ^fcdira/ Jic/jorf for St. Kitts-Nevis and Anguilla, for 

 the year 19CS, states : ' A most useful and necessary Ordinance 

 to make provision for the destruction of mosiputos was 

 passed during the year, giving the District Boards fif Hraltli 

 full power to dull with the scourge '. 



Messrs. Sandbach, Tinne it Co., (Liverpool) and Sand- 

 bach, Parker A ("o., (Demerara) announce that the address of 

 the Montreal agency recently opened by them under the 

 name of the W,cst India Comjiany, Limited, is : St. Nicliolas 

 Building, St. Nicholas Street, Montreal. 



The Louisiana I'la n I cr states thi\t the weather conilitioi-.s 

 in the upper portions of that State are quite satisfactory for 

 the growth of sugar-cane, but that the middle and lower 

 portions arc suffering from excess of rain, which is preventing 

 the work of laying by the crop. A few days of warm dry 

 weather would, however, speedily rectify this and render the 

 <;eneral piospeets quite promising. 



According to the C.S. Dad// Conxular and Trade 

 Tu'jiorff, No. 3,354, the agricultural interests of Panama are 

 .seriously menaced by a plague of locusts, large areas in 

 certain districts having been denuded of foliage, and plants 

 and croi)s almost totally destroyed. The most general method 

 of extermination is to dig trenches with perpendicular sides, 

 into which the locusts are driven by beating the grass and 

 trees with switches. The insects are then destroyed by 

 means of soap-suds, and the trench filled in to allay the 

 odour. 



According to the E.rjteriincnt Stat'on Record of the 

 United States Dei)artment of Agriculture, Vol. X.\, No. 9, 

 instead of a grant of a lump sum being made for the 

 carrying on of the work of the Bureau of Entomology, as 

 has been the case heretofore, a new law has been passed 

 whereby the grant is now divided in such a way as to 

 restrict the expenditure under different sub-heads, a pro- 

 vision being added that, under unforeseen conditions, 10 

 per cent, of the appropriation for nuscellaneous expenses 

 under any one head nuiy be used iu addition. 



