A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



Vol. XVI. No. 395. 



BARBADOS, JUXE 16, 1917 



Price Id. 



URKAW 

 »OTaN!C 



CONTENTS. 



Page. 



Agricultural Tiaetors, 



TviaU with VMt 



Antigua. .Suggestion of , 



Auti -Mosijuito Meas < 



ures in 18!> 



Argentine, Experiment 



Station in The 



British Honduras, Exports 



from 18.5 



Page. 



West 



Insect Notes: — 



Soil Grulis in tl 



Indies 



Some W ee\ils of the 

 Genus Diaprepes 

 tlie West Indies 



18r, 



189 Items of Local Interest 180 



Camphor Trees, Solid and 

 Liquid 179 



Chamberlain. Mr. Joseph, 

 and the West Indies ... 18."> 



Cotton Growing in the 

 British Empire ... 183 



Cotton Notes: — 



British Cotton Growing 



Association 182 



Sea Island Cotton Mar- 

 ket 182 



Depaniuent News 178 



Dominica Exports. 1910 181 

 Dominica Gardens, Train- 

 ing at The 181 



Egg-Plants, The Packing 



of 181 



Fish Poi.soning 187 



Fruit-'.flowing in the Nile 



Vairev 184 



Gleanings 188 



Inbreeding, An Experi- 

 ment in Long-continued 191 



Market Reports 192 



Molasses as a Fertilizer 



for Cam- fjand 179 



Notes and Comments ... I8t 

 Orange.s. Florida, Rela- 

 tive Oil Yield of 18:; 



Panama Hats. Making of 187 



Plant Diseases: — 



Dissemination of Angular 



Leaf Spot of Cotton 19u 

 Source of the Citrus Can- 

 kertnfectionin South 



.Africa 190 



Plant <Tro\vth, Electrical 

 and < Ither New Meth- 

 ods oflncieasing ... 177 

 ' Porto Rico, Forests^of ... 189 

 Prohibiting the Slaughter 



of Immature Cattle ... 185 

 I Science and -Vgriculture... 185 

 Soil Aeration and the 



Growth of Sal Seedlings 189 

 West Indian Associated 



Chamber of Commerce 185 

 West Indian Products ... 191 



Electrical and Other New Methods of 

 Increasing Plant Growth. 



^^ VEN before the war much public and scien- 

 tific interest was shown in connexion with 

 attempts maile to increa.-e crop production 

 b\ means of certain innovations (so far as agriculture is 

 concerned) such as electric discharges, radium, humogen, 

 and dynamite. Since the war, interest has increased 



with the growing importance of intensive culture, and 

 at the present time we are in a position to form a 

 fairly accurate estimate of the practical value of these 

 new devices for stimulating plant growth. 



On account of their novelty, the e.\periuient.s that 

 were made at the beginning received rather more 

 publicity and encouragement in the Fres.s than the 

 results, as a whole, really justified. This was especially 

 so in the case of humogen, radium, and dynamite. 



Humogen, it will be remembered, is a preparation of 

 peat invented by Professor \V. B. Bottomley, for which a 

 remarkably high manurial or tonic action has been 

 claimed. The substance is prepared by neutralizing 

 the peat and then causing it to undergo bacterial 

 decomposition up to a certain point, after which the 

 mass is sterilized and inoculated with a culture of 

 nitrogen-fi.King organisms. The earlier horticultural 

 experiments, notably those conducted at Kew and 

 Wisley, in Surrey, showed that humogen undoubtedly 

 can have a most remarkable efifect on plant growth in 

 pots; but experiments conducted out-of-doors and on a 

 field scale g'lve inconclusive results, and the general con- 

 clusion that most people were soon inclined to accept, 

 was that humogen can not be depended on to exert 

 a positive effect on a field scale, and even if it could, 

 the expense of the substance would make its general 

 u.se prohibitive. Quite recently the results of the 

 Rothamsted investigations as to the agricultural value 

 of humogen have been published by f)r. Russell,* 

 who states that in all cases humogen had no 

 effect. Nor could any evidence be obtained to show 

 that 'bacterization' adds to the value of the peat by way 

 of producing 'plant accelerators' or plant auximones. 

 Professor Bottomley has met these results by stating 

 that he has discovered that the material sent to 



*Juuinal of the Board of A'iriciiUwre (England and Wales) 

 for April 191?! 



