Vol. XV. No. 378. 



THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



349 



BAY RUM INDUSTRY OF THE DANISH 

 WEST INDIES. 



The Perfumery and Essential Oil Record for August 

 1916, contains interesting information concerning the bay 

 rum industry in the Danish West Indies, and other matters. 

 According to the American Vice-Consiil at St. Thomas, the 

 cultivation of the bay tree and the extraction of the oil from 

 its leaves provide for the island of St. John its most 

 important industry; and the distillation of this oil, and its 

 subsequent nfenufacture into bay rum furnish for the 

 sister island of St. Thomas its only article of local manufac- 

 ture and the most important of all its imports. Approxim- 

 ately 4,000 quarts of bay oil are produced in St. .John 

 annually, the greater part of which is sent to St. Thomas, 

 from which it is estimated there i.s manufactured for export 

 purposes about 60,000 cases of 12 quart bottles each of bay 

 rum. The St. Thomas bay rum, which is considered the 

 best on the market, is sent to all parts of the world. The 

 greater part, however, is exported to .Jamaica and Panama, 

 whence it is transhipped to the countries on the West Coast 

 of South America. 



Although bay trees can be grown over the greater part 

 ef the island of St. .John, only about bQ acres are devoted to 

 its cukivation. The pickings of the first few years should 

 yield about 25 lb. of leaves to a tree annually, but after the 

 tree has reached its maturity, at leasts 100 ft), can be counted 

 on, provided weather conditions are favourable. A bay tree 

 reaches maturity when about ten years of age, and under 

 ordinary circumstances will continue to bear leaves for fifty, 

 sixty, and seventy years. According to the opinion 

 of experienced growers, three pickings a year bring in the 

 best yield, and create conditions that favour the superior 

 quality of the leaf 



At present bay 



leaves sell for l|c. per lb., but in 

 normal times the price is 2c. Tlie price of the oil (■f4'50 

 per quart) is considerably less than that ordinarily received, 

 and because of the slack market in St. Thomas, where the 

 oil is usually sent, and the failure to find buyers abroad, 

 large quantities of the leaves are being allowed to go to 

 waste. The retail price of bay rum in St. Thomas is 2.5c. 

 a quart. No Customs duty is levied on any article of export 

 irom these islands. 



Exports of Lime Juice from Trinidad m 



1915. — According to the Perfaniery and Essential Oil 

 Mecord (August 1916), the total exports of lime juice from 

 Trinidad and Tobago amounted to 16,192 gallons, valued at 

 £4,735, during the year 1915, as compared with 5,874 gallons 

 valued at £2,655, in the preceding year. Exports of lime 

 juice to the United Kingdom last year were valued at £4,038, 

 and those to the United States at i'603. 



Qreen Manures and Germination. — The 



following note on this subject is taken from the Experiment 

 Station Record (Vol. 35, No. 1): — 



The results of a series of laboratory studies indicate 

 that green manures may seriously injure the germination of 

 certain seeds. This is believed to be brought about by 

 the action of certain parasitic fungi, the development of 

 which is favoured by the decomposition of the green manure 

 plants. As a rule oil seeds are easily damaged, while 

 starchy seeds on the contrary are quite resistant. Cotton 

 seed and soy beans seem to be extremely sensitive to 

 conditions resulting from green manuring, and the germin- 

 ation of Wax, peanuts, hemp, mustard, and clover is reduced 

 somewhat by the presence of decomposing plant tissue. 

 The damage to oil seeds from green manuring seems to be 

 •onfined largely to the first stages of decomposition, and 

 experimental evidence seems to indicate that two weeks after 

 green manure is added, it does not cause any injury to the 

 seeds. Small applications of calcium carbonate seem to 

 increase the injury to germination. The rate of germination 

 was found to determine to a certain extent the degree of 

 injury, slow germination being marked by a high percentage 

 of diseased seedlings. 



Auximones and Bacterized Peat.— Professor 

 Bottomley's bacterized peat, referred to on several occa- 

 sions in this Journal, is being independently investigated at 

 the Rothamsted Experimental Station, and the results when, 

 published will prove an interesting comparison witli the fol- 

 lowing obtained by Professor Bottomley himself and noted in 

 the Experiment Station Retard (Vol. 34, No. 4): — 



In experiments to discover a bacterial test for plant-food 

 accessories in soils (auximones) it was found that when the 

 phosphotungstic acid extract from 1 gram of bacterized peat is 

 added to a normal nitrifying culture .solution inoculated with 

 nitrifying organisms and the whole incubated at 26° C, 

 a thick scum is formed on the surface of the liquid. Further 

 tests .showed that the scum is due to the presence and specific 

 action of the auximone from the bacterized peat. 



An examination of the scum showed that it consists of 

 two predominant kinds of organisms, namely, a thin bead 

 rod form and a spindle-shaped form. When ^jrown separately 

 in a nitrifying solution plus auximone, the scum did not 

 appear. Tests of a number of soils, including loams, clays 

 and gravels, .showed that all yielded the .scum, the best 

 growth being obtained from a virgin loam. It was found 

 that the rate of growth and thickness of the scum showed 

 a progressive increase with the quantity of auximone present 

 above a certain minimum. Tests of fresh and well-rotted 

 stable manure showed that the quantity of auximone present 

 increases with the progressive decomposition of the organic 

 matter of the manure. Further results brought out by the 

 experiments indicated that the organisms which form the 

 scum require no organic carbon for their growth, and are 

 similar to the nitrifying organisms and sulphur and iron 

 bacteria in that they can assimilate atmospheric carbon 

 dioxid by the process of chemosynthe.sis. They can not live 

 on nitrates, but must obtain their nitrogen from an ammo- 

 nium salt, and they are not destroyed by heating. 



According to the Barbados Weekly Illustrated, the 

 cotton factories jn that island have been unable to obtain 

 a regular supply of seed for making oil and cake from the 

 neighbouring islands owing to the scarcity of schooners and 

 sloops, and so they have sent a mariner to the United States 

 to purchase a schooner which will be used principally in trans- 

 porting cotton seed from the Northern Islands to Barbados. 



