300 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



September 12, 191-1:. 



GLEANINGS. 



Aixurdiiig to the Louisiana Planttr for Aiigu.st 8, 

 1914. Europe produces nearly 9,000,000 tons of beet sugars. 

 Alread}- up to the time of writing (August 8) Great P.i-itaiu 

 has taken srmie 200, (lOO tons from Cuba this season. i 



The Louisiana Planter for August S, 1914, says tliat 

 during the season now ending Cuba has produced over 

 2^ million tons of sugar which has found better appreciation 

 as the result of the situation in Europe tlian was ever 

 expected. 



It i> reported that some 83,000 tons of Philippine sugars 

 are on their way to the United States in British vessels, 

 coming through the Suez Canal, wliicli \\ ill certainly be 

 delayed in reaching their destination and may possibly be 

 diverted into other courses. {Louisiana Planter, August 8, 

 19U.) 



Under the heading of An Unknown Colony, the Morn- 

 imi Post (J n\y 14, 1914) refers to the need for advertising 

 the latent resources of British Honduras. It is maintained 

 that an immigration scheme is needed, and the larger invest- 

 ment of capital is also held to be justified by the veiy 

 t'luaVile nature of the native products. 



According to the India Rubier Journal f(.>r August 8, 

 1914, a possible efl'ect of the present situation in Europe will 

 be to render difficult the financing of rubber plantations, 

 ])articularly as regards the regular payment of labour. As 

 regards German plantation interests, these are disorganized 

 owing to the impossibility of getting through communica- 

 tions and cash. 



The official programme as well as the majority of the 

 paper* to be read at the Tentli International Veterinary C'on- 

 gress, London, have been received, but since tlie meetings were 

 to be held between August .3 and 8 it is proliable that the 

 proceedings were cancelled. In the next issue of the Aqri- 

 cultural Nevis, those paper.? bearing upon tropical veterinary 

 hyariene will b" !V'*-ed. 



The /Hf/i(( Euli/ter .Journal iov -Tuly 18 and 2."). 1914 pub- 

 lishes abstracts of several important papers read at the recent 

 International Ruliber Exhibition. These include the determin- 

 atiftn of bitumen in_ ruV>ber mixing, wild and plantation 

 ruViburs, the intluenee of temperature on the ph^'sical' 

 properties of rubber, the effects of ashes and alkslis in rubl.ers, 

 lialloon fabrics, and proteids in rubber. 



An interesting letter, and comment on the .same, appear 

 in the Louisinna Plant'tr for .July 11, 191 4, showing the origin 

 and the date of the introduction of the polariscopic test of 

 .sugar. This occurred on March 1, 188.3, and from that date 

 the higher grades of sugar were imported in largely increas- 

 ing (piantities, a proceeding which was previously prohibited 

 ).v till- I>utch colour standard test. 



It is stated in the Journal of the Roi/al Society of Arts, 

 for August 7, 1914, that experiments have been conducted 

 in Japan with a view to producing camphor of commercial 

 value from leaves and brani'hes of the camphor tree. Exper- 

 iments have been carried on for some time, but on too .small 

 a scale to ascertain the commercial possibility fif the process. 

 Four hundred pounds of leaves ai-e reipiired to produce 317 

 ijallons of distillate. 



The latest official handbook of New South AVales has 

 been received from the Ennnigrants' Information Office. 

 London. The section dealing with agricultural resources 

 shows that the tropical crops cultivated in this State include 

 tobacco, sugar-cane and citrus fruits. Owing to the 

 cheapness of labour in other sugar growing countries, the 

 production of this product in New South ^\'ales is not a* 

 profitable nor as extensive as it was. 



A very interesting and gi'aphic descri])tion of the Gold 

 Coast and its dependencies appears in United Empire for 

 Augu.st 1914, in the form of a paper by His Excellency 

 Sir Hugh Clifford, K.C.M.G., Governor of the Colony. In 

 a discussion which followed the reading of the paper, 

 Profe.ssor Dunstan, Director of the Imperial Institute, 

 observed that over one-fifth of the world's supply of cacao 

 was produced by tlie Gold Coast, and that that was only 

 a beginning. 



According to the South African A;/riculfural News for 

 .June l-"), 1914, en(|niries made recently by the Mauritius 

 ( Jovernnient have shown that 7-5 per cent, of the estates use 

 the whole of their nrolas.ses on the land while nearly all the 

 rest use a part. Only one estate replied that it sold all its^ 

 molasses, and as over 41 per cent, of the cane crushed last 

 crop was purchased from planters, it follows that those 

 forty-six estates returned to their land sonsideralily more 

 molasses than was produced fi-om the cane grown ou it. 



The world's record for the output of sugar for any one 

 factory is held by Chaparra in Cuba which has brought its 

 1913-14 crop to a do.se with a production of slightly above 

 (511,000 bags, or 87,300 long tons of sugar, polarizing very 

 close to 96. The Louisiana Planter {Angnut 1, 1914) says 

 that this will most likely stand in no grave danger of being 

 passed for some time to come. As a matter of fact the case 

 just quoted is only one of the several reconls that liave been 

 made in Cuba on the 1914 crop. 



A note in the Gardeners Chronich for .July 11, 1914, 

 states that pollen can be preserved by cold storage, and tliat 

 it keeps best if it be protected from an excess fif nK)isture. 

 For pre.serving pollen for hybridization purposes, the follow- 

 ing procedure is recommended: In a small cylindrical glass 

 tube place a few grains of dry calcium chloride, and cover 

 with a thick wad of cotton wool. Put the ripe pollen in 

 a small thimble made of flexible cardboard. Cork the tube 

 and keep it in a cool place — if possible in cold storage. 



