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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[April i, 1885' 



crop is largo and the market good, an acre of ground 

 sometimes returning as much as £120 1" E170. For the 

 cultivation of potatoes the seed was formerly nearly all 

 imported from the United States, but of late years has 

 come largely from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and 

 Prince Edward's Island. The ground for potatoes is usually 

 ploughed or broken up with the spade and raked, the 

 seod cut into pieces with one or two eyes, and planted 

 by forcing into the ground with the fingers to the depth 

 of about four inches, in rows about twenty inches apart, 

 and about eight inches in the rows. From six to eight 

 barrels of seed are used to the acre. When the plants 

 are a little above the ground, the soil is lightened be- 

 tween the rows with a fork, and when about six inches 

 high the earth from between the rows is hoed round the 

 plants, only one hoeing being required. For growing 

 tomatoes the seed is imported every year, and is sown 

 about October, and transplanted in December, into rows 

 about six feet apart, and the plants are put about four 

 feet apart in the rows. As soon as transplanted, the 

 ground round the plants is covered thickly with brush — 

 chiefly the wild sage which grows over the hills — not only 

 to protect from the wind, but to keep the fruit from the 

 ground. The brush is usually raised once by running a 

 stick under and lifting it enough to clear the soil of 

 weeds, no other cultivation being required. Six or seven 

 quarts of fruit from the hill is considered a fair crop. 

 The fruit is rolled in paper and packed in boxes con- 

 taining about seven quarts each. Consul Allen says that 

 the price, of land in Bermuda varies from £30 to £40 an 

 acre, and in some cases not more than one-eighth is 

 susceptible of cultivation. It is estimated that there is 

 an annual export of 350,000 boxes of onions, the box 

 containing about 50 lb., and of potatoes 45,000 barrels. — 

 Journal of the Society of Arts. 



INJURIOUS INSECTS IN 18S4. 



A very noteworthy report on the ravages of injurious 

 insects during the period between the months of November, 

 1883, and December, 1SS4, together with the operations 

 taken to checkmate them, has just been presented to the 

 Royal Agricultural Society by Miss E. A. Ormerod, F.M.S., 

 the consulting entomologist to the society. Some idea of 

 the amount of observations now being made may be gathered 

 from the fact that this lady during a portion of this time 

 has received reports and letters to the number, on an 

 average, of 25 per week. Tho points of communication 

 have been in some degree regarding attacks on colonial 

 produce, but mainly on crop attacks in England. There 

 has been communication in a lesser degree from Scotland, 

 and much more than in previous years from agriculturists 

 in Ireland. Inquiries have been sent regarding " green fly " 

 on cabbage and turnip and prevention of ravage of daddy- 

 longlegs grubs, which have been very destructive among 

 corn and other crops ; also regarding the red maggot of 

 the wheat-midge in com, and the same and nearly allied 

 species in seed (grown for sale) of meadow foxtail grass ; 

 likewise regarding thrips in wheat. Hop aphis has been 

 well observed and reported from the letter part of March 

 until September. Mangold maggot and the rare attack of 

 the mangold and beet carrion beetle have been under 

 notice, and onion maggot has been practically attended 

 to. Turnips suffered badly in many places from surface 

 caterpillars, the injury continuing up to the beginning of 

 this month, and in a few places from attack to the leaves 

 of the small but very destructive caterpillars of the dia- 

 mond-back moth. Wire worm and turnip " fly," or " flea 

 beetle," have been bad in various places, but little injuiry 

 has been sent in regarding them ; therefore it is hoped 

 that the information published by the society has been 

 found serviceable for reference. Communication has taken 

 place regarding many other crop and fruit attacks, and 

 some inquiry been made relatively to the water snail 

 (Limn/Pa truncatula) in connexion with liver fluke. Sound 

 and valuable information has been contributed regarding 

 ox warble fly, and observations are being continued on a 

 system which ciuinot fail to give most of the information 

 still needed. * * * * 



With regard to prevention of attack it has been found 

 by experiment on the aore of hop land at Stoke Edith- 

 park, near Hereford, of which the use has been jjwn 



by the courtesy of Lady Emily Foley, that various 

 applications to the surface of the hop hills, 

 the time ..t dressing in spring, entirely prevented the appear- 

 ance of wingless females or lice on the bines of these hills 

 (though tho others in the ground were infested) until the 

 attack came on the wing at the end of May. Of these 

 applications paraffin mixed with ashes or with earth, shoddy, 

 or other dry material answered the best; the bines on 

 the hills so treated were reported thriving throughout the 

 season up to good bearing. Various methods of combining 

 paraffin or other mineral oils with soft soap and water, 

 so permanently that the mixture may be diluted without 

 again separating into oil and water, are stated to have 

 been found serviceable for destroying aphides in the ex- 

 periments made under direction of some of the State en- 

 tomologists of the United States of America, but from 

 personal experiment it seems so difficult to find the exact 

 strength suitable for killing the insect without risk to the 

 plant that we should be afraid at present to advise this 

 application to the hop leafage. As a watering or as a more 

 convenient method of applying paraffin in the attacks for 

 which it is now used (as of mangold fly, for instance) the 

 plan of mixing is likely to be useful. Quassia has been 

 acting well during the last season as an addition to the 

 common soft-soap hop washes. Paris green was tried and 

 failed to have any effect on the hop aphides. A method 

 of hop washing by steam power has been introduced near 

 Tunbridge Wells, which has as yet only been tried on a 

 limited scale. So far it is 'stated to be successful, and to 

 have the advantage of washing a much larger acreage at 

 a lesser cost per day than can bo done by the hand or 

 horse engines. — Lo.idon Times. 



THE ORIGIN OF CULTIVATED PLANTS. 



When Alexander von Humboldt wrote his 'Essays on 

 the Geography of Plants,' in 1807, the origin or first home 

 of the plants most useful to man, and which have accom- 

 panied him from the most remote times, was unknown. 

 Half a century later, in 1855, so diligent had been the 

 work in this field by European botanists, that the homes 

 of the greater number hail been discovered. Facile prin- 

 ceps in these researches was the swiss botanist, Alphonse 

 de Candolle, and now, after another thirty years, this 

 veteran gives us a full account* of our present state of 

 knowledge on the subject. Of the two hundred and forty- 

 seven species enumerated by M. de Candolle as being now 

 cultivated for their utility to mankind, the native habitat 

 remains still unknown of only nine, viz., two species of 

 barley, Hordeum hexastichon and xulyare; spelt, Triticum 

 spelta ; the pea-nut, Arachis hypoyiea ; the elove, Caryophyllus 

 aromaticus ; the sweet potato. Convolvulus Batatas ;' the 

 lubia, boliciios Luhia ; manioc, Manihot utilissima ; and the 

 kidney bean, 1'haseolus vulgaris. 



It is very remarkable how early civilized or half-civilized 

 man seems to have discovered, in all countries, the plants 

 most useful to him for food, raiment, or other purposes. 

 Of those already referred to, more than half were cert- 

 ainly in cultivation in the Old World over two thousand 

 years ago, or in the New World before its discovery by 

 Europeans, and probably from very ancient date. Of the 

 species brought into use in more recent times, the most 

 important are those which have yielded valuable drugs or 

 gum-resins, like the South American Cinchonas and the 

 Australian Eucalypti. " Men have not discovered," says 

 M. de Candolle, " and cultivated within the last two 

 " thousand years a single species which can rival maize, 

 " rice, the sweet potato, the potato, the bread-fruit, the 

 " date, cereals, millets, sorghums, the banana, or soy. These 

 " date from three, four, or five thousand years, perhaps 

 " even in some cases six thousand years." 



Equally noteworthy is the almost entire absence from 

 some countries of indigenous cultivated plants. The vast 

 territory of the United States yields, as nutritious plants 

 worth cultivating, only the Jerusalem artichoke and various 

 species of gourd. Australia and New Zealand may be said 

 to have furnished nothing of value except the Eucalyptus 

 globulus.) these countries are entirely destitute of grasses 



* 'Origin of Cultivated Plants.' By Alphonse de Can- 

 dolle. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Co. 1884. (Inter- 

 national Scientific Series.) 



