84 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



March 18. 191L 



FRUITS AND FRUIT TREES. 



THE LOOFAH OR VEGETABLE SPONGE. 



The loofah of Egypt, which is ofien used in the 

 place of the sponge, is the fruit of Lu.fa aegy^^itiaca, 

 a plant closely related to the vegetable sponge of the 

 West Indies (y>u#a <(eu,tavguli(); the latter is generally 

 seen growing over fences, or over other plants. Both 

 of them belong to the same order of plants as the 

 melon, pumpkin, sciuash, calabash pipe fruit, etc. 

 The following account of the way in which loofahs are 

 prepared for market is taken from the A(jricidtural 

 Journal of the Cape of (rood Hope, for December 

 1910, p. (i51:— 



The following report from the Imperial Institute, South 

 Kensington, has been received by Mr J . Burtt-Davy, Govern- 

 ment Agrostologlst. The loofah of commerce is prepared from 

 the fruit of La fa aegyjAiaca, and con.sists of the network of 

 fibres existing in the interior of the fruit. The fruits should 

 be allowed to remain on the vines until they have acquired 

 a yellowish tint, but not until they have begun to as.sume 

 a brown colour, as this indicates that the outer .skin of the 

 gourds is undergoing decay, which will cause the fibrous 

 structure within to liecome discoloured. The fruits should 

 be cut from the vine with about 2 inches of stem attached, 

 for convenience of hanging. They should be hung in an 

 airy, draughty shed for two or three days, and the outer skin 

 will then be found to be fairly soft and pliant; this stage of 

 the preparation is assisted liy cutting off the tip of the gourd 

 at the lower end, leaving a small hole through which the 

 contained moisture may drip. The loofahs may next be 

 removed by running the finger down the skin of the fruit on 

 one side, splitting it open, and turning out the loofah, Avhicli 

 is at once thrown into a washing vat containing lime-water 

 (5 fi). of slaked lime to 60 gallons of water). The loofahs 

 are stirred about in the lime-water for a few minutes, and 

 then removed to a draughty shed to dry. Care should be 

 taken to shake the lime-water out of each loofah l)efore dry- 

 ing. If the loofahs are dried too (juickly they are apt to 

 become brittle and crack; they must not, however, remain 

 damp too long, or they may become mouldy, though the lime 

 prevents this to a large extent, and is, indeed, used in order 

 to protect them from fungoid growths. AVhen the loofahs 

 arc dry, the seeds may be easily shaken out of them by hand. 

 and when this is done they are ready for the market. 



THE VARIETIES OF KOLA NUTS. 



In L J'j/iculture Pratique i.h:S Fai/s Cliaudx for April 

 1910, there appeared an article dealing with the kola plant 

 in French Guinea. In- this, a description of the tree is fol- 

 lowed by an account of the fruits and .seeds. It appears 

 that the fruits are mostly collected in December, and that 

 they are in the form of green ' pods', closely bunched, and 

 about as large as the fist; three or four of these are ordinarily 

 liorne together. They contain from five to ten flattened 

 nuts, which possess a white skin, about jV-inch thick, which 

 is easily removed. As is well known, however, this skin is 

 not always white, but is often of a deep red colour, while 

 there are nuts exhibiting the intermediate tints. Both kinds 

 of nuts may be found in the same fruit, although some of the 

 natives affirm that trees exist which give solely one kind or 

 the other — a matter which it is at present difficult to con- 

 firm or deny. Other natives hold that any one tree never 

 produces nuts of one tint alone, but that the proportion of 

 nuts of each colour varies from year to year, without there 

 being any actual change <if tint in the general product, and 

 the opinion is given in the article quoted, that this way of 

 regarding the matter is probably correct. In any case, no 

 special importance seems to be attached to the character of 

 colour: and for raising new trees, seeds of either kind are 

 sown indifierently; A further consideration is that the age 

 of the plant producing the nuts may have some influence, 

 and the natives in certain parts actually believe that it is 

 only the older trees that give nuts of different tints. 



The article presents attempts to account for the ditfer- 

 eiices, and suggests that the kola plant of French Guinea 

 may be an indifferently fixed hybrid between a type pro- 

 ducing white seeds ami one giving those which are 

 red. A .second hypothesis is presented, namely that they 

 are due to accidents of nutrition — a suggestion which is 

 supported by the fact that the plants flower at a time 

 when the season is changing, so that the trees bearing 

 the ditt'erent kinds of fruits vary their produce in accordance 

 with the circumstances that hapjien to surround them. The 

 idea receives further support, since the greatest changes seem 

 t(i be produced where the plant is near the limits of its normal 

 habitat, and is consequently more .sensitive tn climatic con- 

 ditions. 



Analyses by Professor Heckel have shown that the 

 while nuts are richer in latfeine than the others, so that there 

 would aiipear to be some relation between the content of 



