5o8 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1882. 



and manufacturing piurposes had been much discussed 

 before, and he believed that some houses did offer to 

 chemists with their Ijark an assay giving the definite 

 allsaloidal strength. Tliat was the custom of some houses 

 in regard to opium, and he believed Dr. Squibb and others 

 supphed the trade in America with barks with which 

 he furnished assays. It appeared to him that that was 

 one of the most import.ant safeguards, and, while he thought 

 it desirable that every chemist should be able to assay 

 for himself the alkaloidal strength and to determine the 

 amount of the respective alkaloids, it was hardly prac- 

 ticable that he should depend entirely on his own assays, 

 and after all the guarantee of a respectable house would 

 be the best general safeguard. As to the question of the 

 strength that should be accepted as a standard for phar- 

 maceutical preparations, some members of the Confer- 

 ence might remember that he strongly urged last year 

 that the quinine strength should not alone be accepted, 

 but that a definite alkaloidal strength of the various alkal- 

 oids should be the only standard. A bark which yielded 

 two per ceut of quinine ought to be satisfactory for 

 manufacturing pharmaceutical preparations, providing it 

 contained a proper amount of ciuchouidine, quiuidine and 

 cinchonine, say to make 5 per cent total alkaloidal strength. 

 Quinoidine was also very active, and some of the prepara- 

 tions most sold in the Tropics for checking fever and 

 ague consisted almost entirely of that resin, which was 

 by many considered a modified or uncrystallizable quinine. 

 Mr. Southall said he could quite confirm the diHiculty 

 which had been mentioned in regard to getting a reUable 

 calisaya bark for pharmaceutical purposes. There was 

 still a good run on the prep,arations of bark other than 

 the extract and tincture. The decoction was very much 

 ordered by medical men in his part of the country, and 

 was more relied upon than either the fluid extract or 

 tincture. 



Mr. Hampson thought they would be more hkely to 

 reach the point the author aimed at of havir.g an accepted 

 standard quality of bark, or bark yielding a certain. pro- 

 portion of alkaloids, if there were a standing committee 

 of pharmacists, and not a pharmaceutical committee formed 

 by the Medical Council entirely. The Pharmaceutical 

 Society ought to be legally recognized in all these matters, 

 and if practical pharmacists held their proper position 

 with respect to the National Pharmacopoeia, these im- 

 portant changes or improvements would be sooner brought 

 about. As it was, these changes came about in an indirect 

 and slow manner, and improvements did not take place 

 as fast as they should. 



Mr. Ekin said he feared the medical men in Birming- 

 ham had made rather an unhappy selection, according to 

 Mr. Soutball's statement, for in the experiments he had 

 made, which were referred to by Mr. Giles, he foimd the 

 decoction was by far the weakest in alkaloidal value of 

 all the officinal preparations. 



Dr Symes confirmed JMr. Soutlmll's statement that the 

 decoction was very largely used and very much relied 

 upon by medical men ; it was not peculiar to Birming- 



' Tlie President said it would be seen from the remarks 

 which had been made that they greatly needed increased 

 activity in the promotion of therapiaitical research, and it 

 would 1)6 well if there were a society for this purpose 

 formed by medical men having competent chemical and 

 physical knowledge. 



Mr Giles, in reply, said he could not claim that 

 what be had brought forward was new, but still it some- 

 times did good to repeat what was already known. With 

 regard to the alkaloidal standard, Dr. Pereira pointed out 

 that cinchona made its reputation as a febrifuge by the use 

 of a species of cinchona which was not rich in quinine, 

 but in which cinchonine largely prevailed, and this seemed 

 to show that they had made a mistake in pinning their 

 faith so much to the alkaloid which happened to be 

 first discovered. Although recent investigations appeared 

 to show that it was necessary to give chinchonine or 

 quiuidine or ciuchouidine in larger doses than quinine to 

 produce the same effect, there appeared to be no difference 

 in the eft'ects produced, and. therefore, it seemed to be 

 a great waste to throw away that which might be recovered 

 simultaneously with the quinine. At all events it seemed 

 to him that it was rather their business to support the 



7iharmaceutical manipulation of things than the chemical . 

 He had often been disposed to think that chemistry had 

 been ridden a little to death, and that isolation of active 

 principles had been carried too far. — Pharmaceutical Journal. 



Pine Apples. — It is evident we can beat the States in 

 pine apples. The largest ever grown in Florida is said 

 to have had a circumference of twenty-three inches, and 

 weighed 8i lb. The Gladstone Observer, however, says Mr. 

 Fisher, of that place grew one last year which turned the 

 scale at !) lb. Mr. Fingir of the Logan Road, recently 

 sold one of 12 lb. weight and some slightly ]ess.— Planter 

 and Farmer. [We saw one in Colombo which weighed 

 13i lb.— Ed.] 



Lavender. — 'WTiether the present mode of cultivating 

 laven-der {i.e., growing it for four years only) is the best 

 may be open to question, seeing how often old and large 

 plants are covered with blossom. The Gardeners' Chronicle 

 (p. 262) mentions two hedges of lavender, in the terrace- 

 garden at Pusey Park, Faringdon, which are literally 

 sheeted with blossom. The hedges are four feet or so in 

 width, and make a free growth every summer, but they are 

 cut back every September to a width of twenty inches or 

 so, and break out again into profuse growth in spring. — 

 Pharmaceutical Journal. 



Soil Poison. — "Nearly all soils contain iron; it is this 

 that gives them their reddish color. But iron has two 

 oxi<les. One of them, containing the least amount of oxy- 

 gen, is soluble in soil water, and is therefore readily taken 

 into the roots of plants. Copperas, or green vitriol, js 

 composed of this low or protoxide of iron and .sulphuric 

 acid. On exposure to air for a time, this low oxide takes 

 in more oxygen, forming what is called sesqui-oxide of 

 iron, which is insoluble in water. The subsoil which has 

 never been stirred to admit the atmosphere freely, contains 

 the low oxide, and when first turned up. if sown orplanted 

 soon, the roots of the crops take in this poisonous soluble 

 compound of iron, and are much injured, if not killed 

 outright. Turn up a little of such sub-soils at a time, an 

 inch or so each year; let it be exposed to air and frost 

 tor a few months, and it will become innocuous. The 

 new elements oS plant-food in this new soil, will even 

 act as a useful fertilizer " We accepted the explana- 

 tion, acted upon it, and those old farms, deepened a little, 

 year by year, have improved in productiveness. AVhen 

 visiting the old homestead two years ago, I found the 

 average depth of the plowed land thereabouts was perhaps 

 9 inches, frequently 12 inches or more, and it yields double 

 what it used to do, under the same culture except as to 

 depth.— ylmen'crtK Ar/riculturist [This sesqui-oxide of iron, 

 to which Mr. Abbay' attributed the poverty of jiatana soils, 

 may be the cause of the " dyiug-off " of cinchonas.— Ed.] 

 The Growth of Aiieeican Teees. — Some notes have 

 been published on the native trees of the lower Wabash 

 and White River Valleys, the result of long and careful 

 ob.servations, made by Mr. Robert Ridgway and other 

 naturalists, upon the forest growth of Southern Indiana 

 and Illinois. The region described is of special interest, 

 for the forest is hardly surpassed by any other in the 

 number of species of which it is composed, and the 

 magnificent development attained by many individual trees. 

 Nowhere, in fact, in the whole of ;Eastern America have 

 as many large specimens of as many species been recorded 

 as Mr. Ridgway found in the lower Wabash Valley. Nearly 

 all the largest and most valuable broad-leaved trees are 

 there found associated together, and in a single square 

 mile of woods seventy-five species of trees, nearly all of 

 the first class, were tabulated, being nearly as many as 

 grow on the whole European Continent. By actual measure- 

 ment thirty-four species were found to occasionally exceed 

 100 feet in height, while seventeen others, although not 

 measured, were apparently at least 100 feet high. The 

 tallest specimen measured, a tulip tree, was 190 feet in 

 height, and individuals of ten other species exceeded 150 

 feet. Mr. Ridgway states that the numerous small prairies, 

 which were common in the Wabash basin at the time of 

 its first settlement, have been transformed into woodland, 

 and the area of the forest has greatly increased of late 

 years. Extensive woods of oak and hickory, more than 80 

 feet high, and with trunks nearly two feet through, are 

 now growing on that was open prairie within the memory 

 of some of the present owners of the \and.— London Times, 



