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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Februaryi, 1883. 



two or three quarts of this fine, tiry sifted moss; mix 

 and you will have as good a material for starting fine 

 seeds as I have ever used. 



Leaf-mould is a very fair substitute for moss. It contains 

 much plant food, is light and porous, and retains con- 

 sinorable moisture. By leaf-mould, I do not mean muck 

 from the swamp, but the decomposed leaves and sand 

 scraped scraped up in the woods. Leaf-mould, like muck, 

 varies considerably in composition and value. The best 

 is obtained from Beech, Maple and Oak woods. The leaf- 

 mould should be gathered the previous summer and kept 

 in the cellar until wanted. Before using, it should be 

 mixed with equal parts of sand and sifted. For merely 

 starting plants, rich soil is not essential. Seeds will ger- 

 minate in moss and send as well as in the richest mould. 

 After the plauts arc started ami begin to grow, a little 

 plant food is necessary, aud in ehis case leaf-mould is 

 better than mess. Ebual parts of sods, sand and well- 

 rotted manure made into a compost aud wosked over, 

 and sifted until it is fine, is a favorite material for 

 potting pints. 



Dried muck from the swamps is an exceedingly useful 

 matcriul for the gardener. It many section of this country 

 it can be obtained at little more than the cost of cutting, 

 drving, and carting it. No gardener ever has too much 

 of" it. It has many excellent properties. It will make 

 heavy soil light. It will make dry soil moist. It will 

 make cold soil warm. It is an excellent absorbent of 

 water and gases. It is itsilf a manure, and can be used 

 to great advantage in our stables, cowhouses and pig- 

 pens, as well as for mixing with manure in onr compost 

 heaps. The practical difficulty is in getting the muck 

 dry and keeping it dry. We want a place fer storing it, 

 and above all we want to form the habit of getting muck 

 and using it on our farms and gardens. No one doubts 

 its value, but we hardly know how to commence its use. 

 It is, however, a very simple mattiH-. We usually throw 

 up the muck in the summer and let it lie in a heap 

 until winter, when we have plenty of leisure to draw it. 

 Another plan is to throw it up in July, turn it over a 

 few weeks later to facilitate the drying, and early in 

 the fall, befor heavy rains set in, draw it to a shed, or 

 cellar, or barn, where it can be kept dry and ready for 

 use at any time. The farmer who has a good supply of 

 dried muck on hand will find it of great use in many of 

 his gardening operations. 



The boxes I have used for starting plants are two and 

 one half feet long, twelve inches wide, and three inches 

 deep, made of half-inch stuff. A sc-ew at each end, 

 about an inch from the top on the outermost corners, 

 is wound rounO by a piece of wire two feet eight inches 

 long, the other end of the wire being twisted round to 

 a screw fastened to the window. These boxes are placed 

 on the sill of the window. The length of the box, of 

 course, being det«rmined by the width of the window, it 

 can be maile wide or n.arrow according as you have more 

 or less room in the house. There may be windows where 

 you could have them two feet wide without inconveni- 

 ence; if .so the plants will do ju.st as well, aud the boxes, 

 of course, will hold twice the number of plants. I have 

 had better success in starting plants in these boxes in 

 the house, than in a hot-bed as ordinarily managed. The 

 plauts are in sight all the time, and are less liable to 

 be neglected. The children, especially, soon learn to take 

 an interest in these plant-boxes in the house. They require 

 a little assistance i - sifting the soil and moss, and put- 

 ing it in the boxes, and in fastening the boxes iu the 

 window-sills. But they can sow the seed aud cover it 

 with a little sifted moss themselves. It is very desirable, 

 however, to write the names of the seeds to be sown, 

 with the date of sowing, on some wooden labels to mark 

 the rows where different seeds and different varieties are 

 sown. If this is neglected much of the interest will be lost. 



Decauville's Tramway.— Mr. Van de Velde, the energetic 

 and able representative of the Fives-Lilies Co., has under- 

 taken in addition the agency for Decauville's portable 

 tramway. Mr. Van de Velde informs us that he has 

 already secured orders for these patent tranjways to the 

 amount of £28,000. This gives one some idea of the im- 

 portance of the sugar industry in these colonies.- ^'~~*-~ 

 nnd Farmer, 



-Planter 



Hornless Cattle. — According to a correspondent of the 

 Albany Cultivator, "it is the custom with some farmers in 

 Georgia (and has been for years) to rear only hornless cattle. 

 It matters and what breed, all can be made hornless. When 

 the calf is old enough for the horn to start, a very small pro- 

 tuberance is felt upon the bones of the head. A knife is 

 then taken, and a small cross cut over this little horn, 

 the incipient horn is lifted out, the edges of the wound 

 pressed together, an adhesive strap put over it, and there 

 is no more trouble about horns." — Planter and Farmer. 



Bkhaviour of India-rubber when .Subjected to 

 Tension. — As a result of a series of experiments made on 

 some samples of vulcanised Para india-rubber, M. Jeuatzy, 

 of Brussels, found that, under uniformly increasing loads, 

 a band of caoutchouc takes increasing elongations until it 

 becomes twice as long as it was originally, after which 

 the successive elongations decrease ; aud he also finds that 

 the weight necessary to quadruple the length is three 

 times that under which the length has become doubled. — ■ 

 Journal of the Society of Arts. 



A Novel Manure. — I recently obtained from the cellar 

 of an unoccupied mansion about a peck of the solid excreta 

 of a colony of bats. As the public are promised a large 

 supply of this kind of guano from the caves of Borneo 

 very shortly, it may be interesting to ascertain its value 

 beforehand. I have no means of thoroughly analysing 

 what I have, but will gladly send a sample to any of 

 your reatlers who would undertake to do so. In the 

 meantime, I have discovered that it gives off ammonia 

 very freely when mixed with lime and water, and am 

 also trying it for some soft wooded pLants against equal 

 quantities of Clay's Fertiliser. — A. G. Bridgeman^ Marlow. 

 — Gardeners^ Chronicle. 



Mortality of Cinchona Officinalis. — It is now well- 

 nigh two years since the unusual liability to disease, and 

 consequent death, of this valuable but tender species, was 

 first drawn attention to. In the interim between that 

 date and this, it would be no exaggeration to say, that 

 among planters at least, more thought and practical ex- 

 periments, — the fruit of thought — have been expended on 

 this one species than upon all the others put together. 

 Have we not drained the laud whereon this plant is 

 cultivated, again and again, drained it and inter-drained it; 

 and even iuter-inter-drained, until the laud refuses to 

 hold any more. Have we not dug the land time after 

 time, freed the earth round the collar, trenched inter- 

 lineally, spilt the bark longitudinally, deflowered it of 

 blossom, lopped it, topped it, .and finally coppiced it to 

 within and inch of the collar ? And is all this to go for 

 nothing ? I .am afraid so ; we have not found the antidote 

 for canker yet. Trees of this species that are more or less 

 backward in coming forward — if I may be allowed such a 

 parodoxical expression — undoubtedly appear less suscept- 

 ible to canker than those of more rapid growth. "30 

 per cent, of dying trees recover, if topped rather low 

 down,'' but further express a doubt of the future healthi- 

 ness of the suckers. My experience fully confirms this 

 doubt.— F. A. M. in " Ceylon Times" 



Flax Fibre: ANEW Industry.— An important agricultural 

 and manufacturing industry is about to be developed in the 

 Western States of America, which, it is believed, will not 

 only add millions to the wealth of the people, but save 

 millions which are now spent abnad. The industry is 

 that of cultivating flax and utillizing the fibre. The are 

 planted to flax in the Westorn States in I88I was 

 1,127,300 acres, divided as follows :—Iow.a, 287,400; 

 Indiana, 193,400; Kan.sas, 160,900; Illinois, ie0,300 ; 

 Minnesota, 95,200 ; Ohio, 80,600 ; Missouri, 55,000 Nebraska, 

 50,000 ; and AVisconsin, 44,500. Yet upon all this area no 

 merchantable flax fibre was produced, the flax being burned 

 or allowed to rot. The yield of seed was about ti.OOO.OOO 

 bushels, valued at about eight millions of dollars. The 

 total acreage of flax in Europe, where the fibre is utilized 

 amounted in 1880 to 3,334.329, and the value of the fibre 

 produced to lO8,40fi,00O dollars. The average money yield 

 per acre iu flax-seed, therefore, in the Western .States 

 was only about seven dollars, as against an average jaeld 

 in Europe for fibre alone of 32 dollars. Belgium, on an 

 area one-eighth as great as that given to flax in the 

 Western American States, annually produces 1,000,000 

 dollars more .• and France with one-seventh of the area, 

 produces annually 3,000,000 dollars more.- London Times, 



