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THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



July 29, 1916. 



EDITORIAL 



NOTICES. 



— Barbados. 



Letters and matter for publication, as well as all 

 Hspecimens for naming, should be addressed to the 

 'Commissioner, Imperial Department of Agi-iculture, 

 Barbados. 



All applications for copies of the 'Agricultural 



News ' and other Departmental publications, should be 



addressed to the Agents, and not to the Department. 



The complete list of Agents, and the subscription 



and advertisement rates, will be found on page 3 of 



iihe cover. 



Imperial Commissioner of Francis Watts, C.M.G., D.Sc, 



Agriculture for the West Indies F.I.C., F.C.S. 



SCIEKTIFIC STAFF. 



■ Scientific Assistant and 



Assistant Editor W. R. Dunlop. 



Entomologist H. A. Ballon, M.Sc. 



Mycologist W. Nowell, D.I.C. 



CLERICAL STAFF. 



■Chief Clerk 

 Assistant Clerk 



Clerical Assistants 



Typist 



Assistant for Publications 



A. G. Howell. 

 M. B. Connell. 

 ("L. A. Corbin. 

 J P. Taylor. 



Miss B. Robinson. 



A. B. Price, Fell. Journ. Inst. 



Agricultural ^tm 



^ . ' — ■ " — 



Vol. XV. SATURDAY, -lULY 29, 1916. No. 372. 



The American Papaw and the Tropical Papaya. 



According to the Journal of Heredlti/ for July 

 191(i, the American papaw is known botanically 

 under the name of Asimina triloba, belonging to 

 the family Anonaceae, which includes the custard 

 apple. It is stated that so little is the papaw known 

 that its very name has been stolen from it and applied, 

 through a confusion in sound, to the tropical papaya 

 (Carica Papaya). While this double use of the term 

 is unfortunate, we fear that as its employment in 

 connexion with Caric.i Papaya is world-wide, there is 

 little chance of even the United States ever gaining 

 a monopoly of its use in connexion with their northern 

 species of fruit. 



The article in ijuestion gives an interesting account 

 of the papaw tree, which, in appearance, reseuibles very 

 much a cacao tree. But the papaw thrives under 

 temperate conditions, and is not in any sense a tropical 

 plant, though many of. its near relatives are. One of 

 the promising fields for plant breeding, in connexion 

 with the papaw, appears to be in hybridizing it with 

 its close relatives, the tropical anonas — the soursop and 

 the custard apple, for instance. These fruits are larger 

 and finer than the papaw, but too tender to grow in the 

 United States except in Southern California and 

 Southern Florida. There would appear to be a good 

 chance that they could be crossed with the papaw, and 

 the fruit produced which would be hardy in a large part 

 of the United States, while superior in quality to 

 the papaw itself So far as is recorded, this cross 

 has never been made. 



The above idea of extending the range of a tropical 

 plant by crossing it with its near relatives in a cold 

 country is new and interesting, and there would seem 

 to be no reason why the reverse could not be effected, 

 and some of the more attractive fruit of temperate 

 countries acclimatized by hybridization to grow in the 

 tropics. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Contents of Present Issue. 



The editorial in this number has regard to the 

 spread of economic effort within the West Indies, and 

 shows how general schemes now in operation have 

 developed from restricted activity in one or two 

 individual islands. 



( )n pages 246 and 247 will be found an instructive 

 address delivered before the St. Lucia Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society recently, by the Imperial Commis- 

 sioner of Agriculture for the West Indies. 



An important article dealing with the true and 

 the false Bay tree appears on page 24.S. 



The poisoning of weeds ami trees is dealt with in 

 ail article on page 2.54. 



A Plea for Greater Uniformity of Method. 



The editorial in this .Journal for May ti of this 

 year, showed the great lack of uniformity that exists in 

 the West Indies with regard to methods adopted in 

 the carrying out of inanurial experiments with trees. 

 The methods of carrying out, and of interpreting the 

 result of experiments with both cacao and coco- nuts 

 in Demerara, Trinidad, Dominica, and Nevis were 

 compared, and the conclusion arrived at was to the 

 effect that no surprise need be felt concerning the 

 conflicting results obtained, considering the absence of 

 uniformity in the methods used for obtaining them. 



This is much to be regretted in the case of cacao 

 especially. With crops like sugar-cane, and with coco- 

 nuts to a lesser extent, the results of experiments in 

 different places will always lend to disagree no matter 

 how uuitbrm the method, because of the wide range of 

 conditions under which these crops will thrive. But 

 with a crop like cacao it is different. Cacao thrives 



