^OL. XI. No. 259. 



THE- AGRICULTURAL NEW$. 



105 



Cacao iu Ecuador, in 1910. » 



During the year mentioned a record crop of cacao 

 was made in Ecuador: it was 7oi,76l Spanish lb. 

 (1 Spanish lb. = 1014 lb), j.s comiared with ():il,9.).S 

 Spanish lb. in 1908, the year of the previous largest 

 output. This does nob include the production in two 

 of the cacao-growing districts. In any case, the output 

 may be considered to have increased by about 20 per 

 cent. The average market price was 4 to 5 per cent, 

 above the average price in 1909. 



Uses of Eryfchrina Indica. 



Ert/ilirina indtca is related to the bois immortel 

 (£". umhrosa ) used as a shade tree for cacao. Information 

 concerning the various uses to which it is put, in 

 Indo-China, appears in I.' Agriculture Pratique des 

 Pays Chavxh for January 1911, p. (i-'J. 



In Annam and in Tonkin the Iciives are employed 

 as food while they are still young: they are eaten raw, 

 wrapped round meat. Owing to iheir being attacked by 

 bird.«. and caterpillars and other forms of insect life, 

 the stfds rarely attain maturity; when they are fresh 

 their outer skin is of a beautiful violet colour which 

 •changes to a deep brown as they become dry. On 

 account of their rarity and the virtues which are 

 attributed to them, they are much prized by the 

 natives of Annam, who regard them as a valuable 

 remedy for snake bites. When they are used in this 

 way, they are first grated, then crushed and firmed 

 into a large pill: they are then boiled in a little water, 

 in order to form a paste from which a plaster is made 

 and applied to the place where the fangs of the reptile 

 have penetrated. The superstitious nat>ure of the 

 people causes them to consider this a sovereign remedy, 

 but there has been no opportunity to test the correct- 

 ness of their \iews, because it ha.s not been fuund 

 possible to obtain sufficient of the seeds in order to find 

 ■out by chemical analy.-is if they include any curative 

 substance in their composition. 



It is the wood of the tree in which the greatest 

 interest is taken. This is open in texture and not 

 suited for the purposes of cabinet-making. In Cochin 

 XJ'hina, it is sometimes made into trays. Its great 

 lightness causes it to be employed in Annam for making 

 the native shoes, for which purpose it is preferred to 

 anything else. These shoes are really a kind of sabot, 

 and each consists simply of a flat piece of wood, roughly 

 squared, and fitted with a band of copper for holding 

 it on to the foot. The wood is not employed in this 

 way in Tonkin, but it is made to figure in funeral 

 ceremonies. It is a branch of this tree, and of this 

 tree alone, which the mother of a deceased person uses 

 to assist her in walking behind the coffin, while the 

 father aids his own steps with a stump of bamboo. 



Experiment Station Record, Vol. . XXI, p. 320. In 

 this, the graft hybrid produced was called Solanum 

 tubivgense, and there were also descriptions of addi- 

 tional graft hybrids, designated as S. proteus, S. dar- 

 'winianum, S. koclreuterian urn and S. gaertnerianum. 



A subsequent study of these is noticed in the num- 

 ber of the same journal issued in June 1911, page ():32. 

 This has shown that, of those mentioned, only '^'. dar- 

 "•triia7iu//i appears to be a hybrid in the strict sense 

 of the word. Propagation of the so-called hybrids by 

 cuttings gave plants, except in the case of S. koelreu- 

 ierianum, which produced ripe fruit intermediate in 

 character between that of the nightshade and that of the 

 tomato. There were a number of instances of sponta- 

 neous reversion, and all the seedlings derived from the 

 hybrids reverted in the second generation to the parent) 

 form most nearly resembled by the hybrid. 



As has been stated, the only true hybrid was 

 S. darwinianum and support of this view of the form 

 was obtained by observing that, preliminary to the 

 formation of seed, there is actual fusion of cells, includ- 

 ing the nuclei derived from the parent forms. 



A note on this matter appeared in the Agricul- 

 tural Neii-s for January 20. 



•The Nature of Graft Hybrids. 



A note on work of this kind which was being 

 ■ canied out with a graft hybrid between the cultivated 

 ■••tomato and the black nightshade was giyen in the 



A Machine for Extracting Rubber from Bark. 



In the Journal dJ Agriculture Tropicale for 

 November 1911, p. 349, an account is given of experi- 

 ments with an apparatus designed for the purpose of 

 obtaining rubber from Landolphia. It consists oi 

 two parts, one of which is a portable machine, moved 

 by two men, which is brought into the neighbourhood 

 of the plants to be treated; this effects the separation 

 of the wood from the latex-bearing bark. The other 

 part comprises a grinding apparatus, worked by means 

 of a steam engine. This separates the rubber from the 

 fragments of bark, makes it into lumps, and after this 

 process, conveys the mixture on to a polygonal sieve, 

 where a strong current of water carries away the 

 fragments of bark and the impurities, leaving the well- 

 washed rubber behind. 



After suggesting certain improvements in the 

 machinery, the article describes the grinding apparatus 

 as consisting of two sets of eylinders, placed one above 

 the other, in which the mass of material proceeds from 

 the upper to the lower set. A certain amount of water 

 is forced into the cylinders, in order to facilitate the 

 work of grinding. According to information given by 

 the inventor, the machine shown is capable of dealing 

 with nearly 2,000 lb. of bark in ten hours, the quantity 

 of water required for the treatment of this amount 

 being over 500 gallons. The steam engine employed 

 is one of 15 h.p. 



The opinion is expressed that experiments in the 

 employment of the apparatus for the extraction of 

 Funtumia rubber would be cf interest; particularly ia 

 view oi the circumstance that the economic importaijice 

 of lianos as rubber producers is likely to decrease, so 

 that it is not probable that an expensive machine of 

 the kind would be often employed for exploiting such 

 plants. 



