200 



THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



June 25, 1910. 



EDITORIAL NOTICES. 



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 Commissioner, Imperial Department of Agriculture, 

 Barbados. 



All applications for Copies of the ' Agricultural 

 News ' should be addressed to the Aj^ents, and not to 

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 will be found on page 3 of the cover. 



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Agricultural |}nufi 



Vol. IX. SATURDAY, .JUNE 25, 1910. No. 213. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Contents of Present Issue. 



The editorial treats of Changes in the Soil and 

 its Fertility, with special relation to modern ideas of 

 the interactions and reactions of manures and plant 

 food already in the soil. 



An interesting article on the production of seed- 

 ling sugar-canes in Java, appears on page 195. 



The abstract of part of a recent report on fruit 

 exportation from Natal, on pages 196 and 197, serves 

 to show some of the difficulties that have to be met, 

 when an attempt is being made to build up a fruit 

 export trade, even on the part of a large countr}'. 



The last annual report of the British Cotton-Growing 

 Association is abstracted on pages 198 and 199. 



A New Way of Preparing Vanilla Extract. 



A number of the S^jice Mill contains an account 

 of the preparation of vanilla extract by a new process. 

 According to the Journal D'Agricidture Tropicale 

 for January 1910, this states that a cylindrical heater, 

 which is provided with special openings and a vapour 

 jacket is used for the purpose. The solvent employed 

 is a mixture consisting of 40 per cent, of alcohol and 

 60 per cent, of water. The temperature is raised slowly, 

 and is not permitted to pass above 38'C. 



The essence obtained in this way contains a high 

 proportion of extracted matters, and is of good quality, 

 even when the pods employed are of inferior kinds. 



The Insect Notes (p. 202) contain the first part of 

 a series of articles on the Acarina, or Mites. These 

 should be read in conjunction with the articles that 

 have appeared alread} , on the life-history of insects and 

 the orders of insects. 



Some particulars of agriculture in British East 

 Africa appear on page ^03. 



Rubber Cultivation in Bolivia. 



The Board of Trade Journal {or May 19,1910, 

 gives information from a volume published recently by 

 the Under Secretary of State in the Bolivian Ministry 

 of Commerce and Industry, on the economic and finan- 

 cial situation in Bolivia. Speaking of rubber, it is 

 stated that, after Brazil, the most important country in 

 South America for the production of rubber is Bolivia, 

 and that this fact is not generally known because that 

 country possesses no jwrts, so that the rubber which is 

 produced there appears in the statistics of Chili, Peru, 

 Argentina and Brazil. The fact is that there is an 

 immense territory in the State which is covered with 

 magnificent forests of Hevea. According to the official 

 figures, 1,899 tons of rubber, valued at £424, .514 were 

 produced in Bolivia in 1906; 1,802 tons, valued at 

 £3.53,6.5.5 in 1907; and 1,789 tons, valued at £216,082. 

 in 1908. It seems that the production of rubber in 

 Bolivia is hampered to a serious extent by the fact 

 that the export tax varies considerably in different 

 parts of the country, its amount being left, apparently, 

 to the discretion of the individual Customs authorities. 



The Fungus Notes, on page 206, deal with Thread 



and Horse-Hair Blights. 



Importation of Indian Cotton into tlie United 

 States. 



The Board of Trade Journal for April 21, 1910, 

 gives information from a report b}' the British Vice- 

 Consul at Charlestown, on the trade of that district in 

 1909. This shows that, on account of the unusually 

 high prices that ruled in the United States for cotton 

 during the end of 1909, some of the Carolina cotton 

 mills imported several hundred bales of cotton from 

 India, for the purpose of making a trial of this, in com- 

 petition with that grown in America. It is intended 

 to continue the experiments with the cotton, which is 

 of a somewhat shorter staple than the United States 

 Upland cotton, but is said to be equally white and 

 smooth. If the trials prove satisfactory (and there 

 seems to be a certain amount of confidence of this), and 

 the present high prices for American Upland continue, 

 it is believed that larger orders will soon be made for 

 the Indian article. 



These facts derive an additional interest from the 

 statement that this occasion is the first time, in the 

 history of the mills in the Southern States, that 

 Indian cotton has been purchased for use in them. 



