January i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



579 



The Kentucky Oobfee Tree as a Fly Poison. — Mr. " G. 

 F. H., " Albemarle Co., Va., writes us : " Back of our hou.se 

 here, and overhauging the piazza, is a very large ■* Ootfee 

 Tree. " Though this locality is iufested, like Egypt, with 

 a plague of flies, we have uever suffered any serious annoy- 

 ance from them. One year this tree was nearly stripped 

 of leaves by a cloud of Potato Flies (the bli.stering fly), 

 and we feared that the tree would die from the complete 

 defoliation. In three days, the ground beneath it was black 

 with a carpet of the dead corp.ses, and the tree put out 

 new leaves, and still flourishes. For ten years we have 

 used the bruised leaves, sprinkled with molasses water, as 

 a fly poison. It attracts swarms of the noisome insects, 

 and is sure death to them. There are, I am convinced, 

 two distinct varieties of the tree. This one rarely bears 

 seed, but mutiplies by numerous sprouts sent up at a great 

 distance from the trunk — often 40 feet ofl:; the other is 

 covered with large pods. [The staminate and pistillate 

 flowers are on separate trees. — Ed.] I doubt the ethcacy 

 of the latter as a fly poison, since several of this kind 

 grow about the houses here without the beneficial effect 

 havina: been noticed. — AitidriccDt Ayriculturht. 



A Gum Forest.— Mr. O'Neill, H. B. M's Consul at 

 Mozambique, has recently reported to the Foreign OiEce 

 that from Mr. James Heathcote, of Inhambane (who was 

 employed by him for the recovery of the body of the late 

 Captain Wybrants), he has received information of the 

 discovery of a considerable tract of copal forest. Mr. 

 Heathcote writes : — " The forest where I obtained this 

 gum, of which I send you specimens (I have collected 

 6 tons) is fully 200 miles long. It is a belt wliich runs 

 parallel with the coast, and is midway between the coast 

 and the first range of mountains. From Inhambane it is 

 nearly 100 miles to get right into it." The distance 

 of the forest from Inhambane is rather great, and may 

 retard its being opened up ; but its discovery adds to the 

 known wealth of the district, and a new export to the 

 place. Mr. Heathcote points out the following curious 

 coincidence, and although it may not be the first time 

 that attention has been drawn to it, the Consul mentions 

 it: — The native name of this gum is 'Stakate' and 'Ktaka.' 

 The Zulu name for gum is ' Inthlaka.' The name ' Stacte,' 

 mentioned in Exodus xxx. 34 (this is believed to be the 

 gum of the Stoma tree, {Sti/raj: Ojjichude)^ would be 

 pronounced as the above native name. The tree domineers 

 over all, and standing in any place overlooking the forest, 

 you see here and there trees growing as it were in a 

 hay field. The gum has a beautiful odour if pounded and 

 burnt, also if boiled in a pot of water." The ordinary gum 

 copal tree of the mainland of Zanzibar and Mozamlji [Ue, 

 though as a rule lofty, is by no means of the striking stature 

 incUcated by Mr. Heathcote's comparison. — Times of India. 



The Eeport on the Lucknow Horticultueai, Gardens, 

 for the year ending March liHi, shows that the net 

 cost to the Government of the whole establishment was 

 R3,S37-5. The Director of the Agricultural Department 

 says, that, " considering their extent and the work they 

 transact these gardens are by far the most cheaply ad- 

 ministered of any of which I have knowledge." The gar- 

 dens shared in the general failure of the mango crop. 

 The profits from the joint cultivation of mangoes and 

 pineapples fell from K80 to K20 to the acre. Mr. Ilidley, 

 the 8uperiuteudent, notes that the excessive flowering of 

 the mangoes in the previous year seems to have exhausted 

 them beyond then- power of blooming this year. It would 

 be interesting to know the causes which produced the 

 exhubearance of bloom preceding the year of failure. 

 Plants do not put forth flowers much in excess of the 

 average without some influence being at work. The point 

 of practical interest, especially in such a valuable crop as 

 tha' of mangoes, is to isolate the cause and brine it^ jf 

 possible, within the limits of treatment for prevention. 

 If it is wholly due to climatic influences over which 

 little or no control can be exercised, an opinion to that 

 effect, with reasons annexed, would in our estimation, 

 be highly desirable from the Superintendent. No two 

 years are climatically in every respect identical ; and it 

 IS in this variation, it seems to us, that there is a very 

 wide field for observation and, by and bye, for deduction. 

 Surely these fall quite witliiu the sphere of the duties of 

 a Superintendent of such gardens as those of Lucknow 

 ami of the Agricultural Director of a great province. It 



is not quite suflicient cither for the Superintendent or the 

 Director of Agrien'ture to say "Our mangoes failed this 

 year, they put forih an excess of flowers the year before, 

 and they had not strength to produce flowers again this 

 season. — Calcutta EnylisJiman. 



Haputale Cinchona.— We have before us some results 

 of officinalis bark analysis, shewing in a remarkable degree 

 the eft'ect of renewing. The original bark from nine officinalis 

 trees gave, on analysis, 443 of sulphate of quiuuie ; re- 

 newed stem shavings from the same trees, four months 

 later, gave 6'16 of sulphate, whilst ten months renewed 

 bark gave 5-03 quinine. — Ceylon Times. 



The Sea Baole Peach is a variety not extensively grown 

 nor generally cultivated. Speaking of specimens sent by 

 Mr. Kivers, of Sawbridgeworth, the .Journal says :— The fruit 

 is very large, 11 inches in circumference, and 3^ inches 

 in diameter ; round, with a wide suture, which "extends 

 all round the fruit, and termiuated by a large prominent 

 nipple ; skin with a very delicate down, pale yellow, tinged 

 and mottled and speckled more or less with rose colour 

 and with a mottled thin cheek on the side next the sun ■ 

 stalk very short, embedded all its length in a deep cavity • 

 flesh very delicate and juicy, deep red at the stone, the 

 colour extending in rays well into the substiince of the flesh, 

 which is quite melting, sweet, and with a rich flavour- 

 leaves with round glauds. — Australasian. 



Charcoal in Potting Soils.— The value of this article 

 (says the Gardeners' Chronicle) as an agent iu keeping 

 potting soils open and porous can hardly be too highly 

 estimated ; such prime Auricula growers as the Eev. F. D. 

 Horner, Mr. B. Simonite, Mr. S. Barlow, and others use 

 it largely in their composts, and with the best effects. 

 It is not a mere mechauical agent like sand, but an active 

 principle, having, as Liebig remarks, "a physical as well 

 as a chemical eflrect on soils decidedly useful. It renders 

 them, as far as it is present, light and friable, and gives 

 additional warmth to them by its co'om-, which absorbs 

 and retains readily the rays of the suu during the day; 

 wherever charcoal has been applied rust never affects the 

 growth of wheat." [Charcoal on young coffee estates does 

 not seem to have saved them from the coffee fuugus. Ed.] 



Nature's Laboratory of Petroleum Oils and Gases, 

 — In a paper read by Mr. James S. Newberry before the 

 New York Academy of Sciences on " The Origin and Eelations 

 of the Carbon Minerals," he stated that the. evolved pro- 

 ducts of the wasting of plant tissue in the formation of 

 peat, lignite, coal, &c., include both liquids and gases, and 

 Ijy subsequent changes, solids are produced from some of 

 them. Carbonic acid, carbonic oxide, nitrogeuous and hydro- 

 carbon gases, water and pttro'eum are mentioned as the 

 substances wliich escape from wood-tissue during its de- 

 composition. That all these are eliminated in the decay 

 of vegetable and animal structures is now generally con- 

 ceded by chemists and geologists, although there is a 

 wide diflference of opinion as to the nature of the process. 

 * * * In some crystalline limestones, detached scales 

 or crystals of graphite occur, which are undoubtedly the 

 product of the complete distillation of liquid hydrocarbons 

 with which the rock was once impregnated. The remark- 

 able purity of such graphite is the natural result of its 

 mode of formation, aud such cases resemble the occurrence 

 of graphite iu cast-iron in basalt. The black clouds and 

 bands which stain many otherwise white m.arbles, are 

 generally due to .specks of graphite, the residue of hydro- 

 carbons which once saturated the rock. Some limestones 

 are quite black from the carbonaceous matter they con- 

 tain (Lycoming V.i'iey, Penn.; Glenn's Falls, N. Y. ; and 

 Collingwood, Canada), and these are sold as black mar- 

 bles ; but if exposed to heat, such limestones are blanched 

 by the exiiulsion of the contained carbou ; usually a residue 

 of anthracite or graphite is left, forming dark spots or 

 streaks, as we find in the clouded and banded marbles. 

 Finally, the great work going on in nature's laboratory 

 may be closely imitated by art; the diflferencea in the 

 results being simply the consequence of dilferiug conditions 

 in the experiments, Vegetable tissue has been converted 

 artificially into the equivalents of lignite, coal, anthracite 

 and grajjhite, with the emission of vapors, gases, and 

 oils closely resembling those evolved in natural processes. 

 So petroleum may he distilled to form aspha't, aud thi.s 

 in tm-n converteil into albertite and coke (tlv < i.s anthra- 

 cite). Grahamite has been artificially produceii from petro- 

 leum by Mr. W. P. Jexmey.—OU and, Faint Eeviea. 



