Vol. XIII. No. 309. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



69 



A special feature of the work under review is its 

 illustrations which are numerous and particularly good. A 

 useful feature in this connexion are the maps of the 

 Protectorate reproduced to different scales. 



A-s remarked by Profe.ssor Dunstan in the introduction, 

 there may be many who will have ditlerences of opinion on 

 many of the views advanced by the authors, but those who 

 are attracted by the agricultural promise of Uganda, whiih, 

 it is hardly necessary to state, is extremely bright, will find 

 muih that is of practical guidance in this attractive publication. 



CO-OPERATION. 



THE DISEASES OF TROPICAL PLANTS. By 

 Melville Thurston Cook, Ph. D. 317 pp. +XI Macmillan 

 & Co., Ss. Qd. net. 



This work deals in a general manner with the fungoid 

 diseases of tropical cultivated plants without entering into 

 a description of the causative organisms. There are intro- 

 ductory chapters dealing with the nature of disease, the 

 structure and functions of plants, and the classification of 

 fungi, while concluding chapters deal with prevention and 

 control, and with fungicides and spraying apparatus. The 

 book, to use the words of the author, 'is intended primarily 

 for the planter, but it is hoped it may be of some service to 

 the student.' Since the language, particularly of the intro- 

 ductory chapters, is that of the botanical lecture room, and 

 Bcientitic names are unsparingly used throughout, the planter 

 will himself need to be more than a little of a student to 

 appreciate it. The illustrations depict the general appearance 

 of diseased plants or plant organs. They are from beautiful 

 photographs, well reproduced. The book is capable of 

 supplying to students in or proceeding to the Tropics a good 

 general introduction to the study of tropical plant diseases. 



Applied as a manual of the diseases of special crops, it is 

 somewhat less successful. The author quotes with approval in 

 hia preface the dictum of a correspondent that the time has 

 not yet come when it is possible for anyone to write a work on 

 the disea.ses of tropical plants, and the degree of truth in 

 this is illustrated in his own attempt. The present rate of 

 advance of our knowledge of the subject is such that the 

 amount of time required for bringing out a book is quite 

 sufficient to make it already out of date in important matters 

 before it appears. In the section on cacao, for example, the 

 Nectrias are dealt with at some length as the cause of canker, 

 while the discovery (1910) that they are secondary in their 

 nature, the real parasite being Phylophlliora Falieri, is indicat- 

 ed in a footnote. In dealing with disea,ses of the banana (in 

 three pages as against six for the 'Irish potato) no mention is 

 included of the important work on Panama disea.se by Drost 

 (March 1912) in Surinam — a research which has given us 

 most welcome knowledge of this important subject. Other 

 examples, of more or less importance, might be given, but 

 since the book is rather more than less up to date than 

 is usual in general text-books too much weight should not be 

 given to this criticism. 



The book contains, under each crop heading, a summary 

 of the characteristics of the diseases of that crop, gathered 

 from a wide range of literature and apparently omitting little 

 of moment which had appeared at the time when it was 

 compiled. A list of references to the special literature of 

 each crop is given. 



Considerable uncertainty is noticealile in the conclusions 

 respecting the causative organisms of sugar-cane diseases. 

 Some of this might have been avoided by an application of 

 the caution noted in the introduction as necessary in accepts 

 ing results obtained from material shipped to temperate 

 climates and there used for experiment under artificial 

 conditions 



MUTUAL CREDIT IN INDIA. 



The phenomenal success nf mutual credit in India 

 oan be appreciated from the following account taken 

 from the Journal of the Board of Agriculture of 

 England (.January 1914.). The profits since the com- 

 mencement of the movement, nine years ago, equal 

 nearly 8 per cent, of the total assets:— 



The co-operative credit movement in India, of which 

 some account was given in the .Journal for February 1913, 

 continues to make remarkable progress, as will be seen from 

 the following statistics for the year 1912-13. The total 

 number of co-operative societies in India increased in that 

 year from 8,177 to 12,324; the total number of members 

 from 403,318 to .573,.536; and the total working capital 

 from £2,238,000 to £3,-562.000. ( )f these societies, 2.51 are 

 central societies, whose main object is to find capital for the 

 local societies; G91 are non-agricultural societies, most of 

 which have been established for the provision of credit 

 facilities among residents of towns, although a few have now 

 been started for co operative purchase and sale; the remain- 

 ing societies are agricultural societies formed among the 

 rural population and, as they are by far the most impoi-tant, 

 attention may be confined to them. 



During the year the number of these agricultural 

 societies increased from 7, -562 to 11,382, of which 11,296 were 

 co-operative credit societies and sixty-three were societies for 

 the co-operative insurance of live stock. The number of 

 members increased during the year from 32.5,000 to 467,000, 

 and the working capital from £1,21.5,000 to £1,93.5,000. 

 During the year members deposited with the societies 

 £120,000 and repaid loans to the amount of £800,000; 

 deposits were withdrawn to the amount of £64,000; and the 

 new loans made to members amounted to £1,440,000. 

 The amount of interest received by the societies was 

 £148,000, while the interest paid on loans and deposits 

 was £91,000, thus leaving a margin of profit in in- 

 terest of £.57,000, or about 4 per cent, per annum 

 on the average amount out on loan: and as the charges 

 for establishment and contingencies amounted altogether 

 only to £13,000, or a little over £1 per society, there 

 was a substantial profit on the working of the year. During 

 the year the total assets of these rural societies increased 

 from £1,29.5,000 to £2,040,000, of which £1,720,000 was 

 out on loan to members (as comp;ired with £1,112,000 at 

 the end of the previous year). The liabilities of the societies 

 to persons and bodies outside them amounted to £1,386,000, 

 including £1,1 10,000 due to central banks and other societies, 

 £210,000 borrowed from non-members and £06,000 lent by 

 the Government in backward parts of the country, so that, 

 after deducting the.se liabilities to outsiders, the societies and 

 their members between them ended the year with net as.sets 

 of the value of £654,000 (as compared with £442,000 at the 

 beginning of the year). This represents the amount which 

 the establishment of these credit societies has enabled their 

 members to lay by in the cour.se of the last nine years. Of 

 the £654,000, £487,000 was due to individual members in 

 the form of share capital, deposits, and interest, and after 

 allowing for this amount and for some other small items, the 

 societies as such possessed £159,000, which represents their 

 profits to date from the commencement of the movement, and 

 equals nearly 8 per cent, of their total assets. 



