May 1, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



889 



To give relief to a bum: Apply the white of an egg. The 

 yolk of the egg may be eaten, or placed ou the shirt bosom, 

 according to the taste of the person. If the bm-n should 

 occui- on a lady, she may omit the last instructions. — To 

 wa.sh black silk stockings: Prepare a tub of lather, com- 

 posed of tepid rani-water and white soap with a little am- 

 monia. Then stand in the tub till dinner is ready. KoU 

 in a cloth to dry. Do not wring, but press, the water out. 

 Tliis will necessitate the removal of the stockings. — If 

 youi" hantls are badly .chapped, wet them in warm water, 

 rub them all over with Indian meal, then put on a coat 

 of glycerine, and keep them in your pockets for ten days. 

 If you have no pockets convenient, insert them in the pock- 

 ets of a friend. — An excellent liniment for toothache or 

 neuralgia is made of .sassafras, oil of orgauum, and a 

 half -ounce of tincture of capsicum, with half a pint of 

 alcohol. Soak nuie yards of red flannel in this mixture, 

 wrap it around the head, and then insert the head in a 

 liaystack till death comes to your relief. — WooUeu goods 

 may be nicely washed, if you put half an ox-gall into 

 two gallons of tepiii water. It might be well to put the 

 goods into the water also. If the mixture is not strong 

 enough, put in another ox-gall. Should this fail to do 

 the work, put in the entire ox, reserving tlie tail for soup. 

 The ox-gall is comparativelj' useless for soup, and should 

 not be pre.served as an article of diet. — Queenslander. 



The vine (Vitis vinifera) is also adduced as a case in 

 point. Its liability to the vine disease and to the ravages 

 of the phylloxera is attributed to the excessive age of 

 most of the roots at present bearing wine in Europe. 



Altliough not mentioned in the ai'ticle which has been 

 briefly summarised, the potato disease will readily suggest 

 itself as aifording another instance of propagation by 

 division, and where a periodical return to the method of 

 raising from the natural seed is urgently demanded. 



Successful experiments have been made in raising the 

 Lombardy poplar from seed at Oarlsruhe. In the cold 

 winter of 187H-MO there stood, side by side in the nursery, 

 large saplings which had been raised from seed and pl.ants 

 of equal size which had proceeded from cuttings. The 

 latter were all, without exception, frozen to death, while 

 the seed-grown plants suffered no injury. — Journal uf 

 Forestry, 



POPLAR, VINE AND POTATO DISEASE. 



The disease of the Lombardy poplar, { Popvlus fastiyiata,) 

 besides engaging the attention of the Norfolk Naturalists' So- 

 ciety, has been several times of late referred to in the Field and 

 \\\\h& Jmtrnal of Forestry. A paper has lately been contri- 

 buted to the Forst vnd Jayd Zeituuy on this subject by Forst- 

 meister Wiese, in which are quoted several extracts from 

 a lecture by Dr. Jessen, professor of botany. The disease 

 has been observed in Germany for about teu years, and 

 they have accounts of its prevalence in North America, as 

 also in England. Forstmeieter "Wiese observed it wherever 

 he travelled in Dessau, Thuringia, and in Bavaria. It 

 commences with a drying up of a few twigs at the top, 

 or on the side, which gradually increases. Attempts have 

 been made to poUard some of the trees affected ; but with- 

 out much success. Everywhere Lombardy poplars are 

 dying off, and in some quarters it is no longer possible to 

 get cuttings to form roots and foliage. The Lombardy 

 poplar, for which he gives as its systematic designation the 

 name Popuhis dilatata. was introduced into Germany from 

 the north of Italy about a hundred years ago, probably by 

 cuttings. Like other poplars it is dic8ciou.s, having the 

 flowers of each sex on separate trees. Only male trees 

 were acclimatised in the northern habitat, and they have 

 been propagated by cuttings ever since, without any opport- 

 unity of reproducing the species by seeding. Now these 

 gentlemen say that when a cutting takes root, and the 

 apparent result is a young poplar two or three years old, 

 this small plant really remains a divided part of the tree' 

 from which it was taken. The cutting therefore continues 

 to partake of the identity of the tree, and remains the 

 same in sex and also in age. The apparently young cutting 

 may therefore start its separate life with all the weakness 

 and predisposition to disease and decay characteristic of 

 an advanced age. Every species of tree has a hmit to the 

 period of its growth, and those species which grow rapidly 

 are generally short-lived. It may thus happen that a 

 poplar raised from a cutting approaches its age hmit be- 

 fore it is apparently twenty, and it dies off as if succumb- 

 ing to an exceptionally severe season. By this reasoning 

 the Lombardy poplars in Northern Europe are many of them 

 much older than they seem, and the only cure for this 

 widespread disease would be a return to the natural method 

 of raising from seed, or a fresh importation from Italy of 

 cuttings from really young trees. 



Similarly a local disease of two willows, fialix nlha and 

 Salix purpurea, is accounted for. There had been pollarded 

 along the wayside, and lately when it was wished tostait 

 new tnmks for pollarding, it was found that cuttings from 

 these trees, usually so exuberant, refused altogether to 

 flourish. Both trees are common in lioth sexes in Germany 

 and seed profusely. But it seems that for convenience' 

 they have always been propagated by cuttings taken from 

 the old hollow poUards, until now nature is oihausted. 



PLANT FOOD. 



Reverting to the matter of Plant Food, alluded to in our 

 la.st immber, we now come to a very important question, 

 viz., the quantity of nitrogenous food lost under e.xisting 

 circumstances by drainage. In the paper which has fm-n- 

 ished the text for these remarks, the results of inquiries 

 as to the amount and composition of the drainage-water 

 are tabulated and commented on, in the lii-st instance in 

 the case of unmanured and uncropped land, and next ou 

 that which is variously cropped and manured. The amount 

 of the drainage-water depends on the rainfall, on the phys- 

 ical character of the soil, its permeability and water-hold- 

 ing power, .and on the amount of evaporation. This latter 

 in its turn is determined by the temperatm*e, the phy.sical 

 character of the soil, and is greatly increased when a crop 

 is growing on its surface. The analyses of the drainage- 

 water are consequently important, as bearing directly on 

 the waste of available plant food. 



During the ten years 1S70-1SS0 the range in the amount 

 of rainfall has been enormous, in other words, there have 

 been extremes of drought and extremes of moisture — one 

 period of twelve months had a rainfall of 22'9 inches, 

 another of 42'7. In like manner the drainage collected 

 from soil, uncovered with vegetation, has varied dining 

 the summer months from less than 1 inch to more than 

 12 inches, and during the winter months from nearly 4 

 inches to more than 15 inches, and the amount of drain- 

 age from nearly 5 to more than 26 inches. The causes 

 of this extreme variation are dependent, among other 

 matters, on the amount of evaporation from the sm-face, 

 and this has been ascertained by subtracting the amount 

 of di-ainage from the amoimt of the ramfall, the water 

 removed by drainage being merely the excess of the rain- 

 fall over evaporation. The drainage, mea.sm-ed at depths 

 of 20, 40, and 60 inches respectively, is, on an average, 

 high in autumn and winter, attaining its maximum in 

 November or January, and low in sunnner, the minimum 

 occurring in INIay. The following figiu-es, extracted from 

 one of the tables, will show the relative amounts of the 

 rainfall, drainage, and evaporation for a year (average of 

 the ten from 1.S71-18SO). Thus, with a total annual rain- 

 fall of Sl'4 inches, the amount of drainage in inches at a 

 depth below the surface of 20 inches was 14, at 40 inches 

 in depth 149; and at 60 inches \'i2. 



So far we have been dealing with the gain and loss of 

 water from micropped soil, but the results so obtained are 

 of course only partially available for cultural pm-poses. It 

 becomes therefore necessary to consider the state of affairs 

 under more ordinary conditions when powerful evapoiation 

 tiikes place, this evaporation being mainly due to the rapid 

 transpir:: tion of water through the leaves. This takes place 

 in a growing plaut under the influence of light, the roots 

 also lending as.sistauce by enablmg the plant to draw water 

 from dipths of the .soil too gi-eat to be distributed oy 

 ordinary capillary attraction. Deeply rootuig plants are 

 tliiLs more effectual in drying the soil than tho.<io with 

 shorter, less deeply penetrating roots. As the transpiration 

 of water from a plant is determined by light, the amonnt 

 transpired nmst obviously have some connection with the 

 rate of a.ssimilation and growth. From experiment« re- 

 corded many years ago in the .Tou, raf of-tlie Royal Horti- 

 cidtv.ral Society it was condud. d in the case of pot plants 

 that from 250 to 300 lb. of watei were evaporated for 



