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THE AGRICULTURAT- NEWS 



June 30, 1917. 



EDITORIAL 



Head Office 



NOTICES. 



Barbados. 



Letters and matter for publication, as well as all 

 ■specimens for naming, &hould be addressed to the 

 Commissioner, Imperial Department of Agi'iculture 

 Barbados. 



All .-ipplications for copies of the 'Agricultural 

 News' and other Departmental publications, should be 

 addressed to the Agents, and not to the Department. 



The complete list of Agents, and the subscription 

 and advertisement rates, will be found on page 3 of 

 the cover. 



Imperial Commissioner of 

 AgriculUire for the West Indies 



.Sir Francis Watts, K.C.M.G., 

 D..Sc.,F.I.C., F.C.S. 



SCIENTIFIC STAFF. 



'ScieiUific Assistant and 

 Assistaitt Editor 



-Bniomologists 



■Mycologist 



•Chief Clerk 



Clerical Assistants 



Typist 



Asiistant Typist 

 Assistant for Publications 



W. R. Dunlop. 



I H. A. Ballou, M.Sc. 



\J. C. Huteon, B.A., Ph.D. 



W. Nowell, D.I.C. 



CLERICAL STAFF. 



A. G. Howell. 

 fL. A. Corbin. 

 ■ P. Taylor. 

 Ik. R. C. Foster. 

 Miss B. Robinson. 

 Miss W. Ellis. 

 A. B. Price, Fell. Journ. Inst. 



^griciittural ^tm 



Vol. XVI. SATURDAY, JUNE 30, 1917. No. 396. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Contents of Present Issue. 



The editorial in this issue deals in a general way 

 with the question of the production of foodstuffs in the 

 West Indies. 



In conne.xion with the editorial several notes 

 describing local action already taken in the West Indies, 

 on pages 194 and 19-), will be read with interest. 



In view of the approach of the hurricane season, 

 an article explaining the nature .and warnings of cyclones 

 is published on page 19'S. 



Insect Notes in this issue deal with soil grubs and 

 a'so with slugs causing considerable damage. (Jn pages 

 20() and 207 will be found two important articles deal- 

 ing with the mongoose and with rats, respectively. 



Pure and Applied Science. 



In his work, 'Discovery or the Spirit and Service of 

 Science', Professor A. A. Gregory draws, as is observed in 

 the Botanical Journal for March, a distinction between 

 pure and applied science. The aim of the one is to 

 acquire knowledge; that of the other, to apply to the 

 direct service of man the knowledge so acquired. The 

 former is altruistic, the latter largely mercenary. The 

 one leads to poverty and obscurity; the other to wealth 

 and fame. Both are equally necessary, for the student 

 of pure science has always, with certain marked excep- 

 tions been unpractical, but both are not equally reward- 

 ed. Yet without the scientist — the man who is ever 

 extending our knowledge of the laws and facts of the 

 universe — there can be no progress. Of all the men 

 who devote themselves to the application of science, the 

 agriculturist is in many cases the slowest to take 

 advantage of the discoveries and teachings of science. 



'To the husbandman in general, science means 

 theory and his own experience fact. He prides him- 

 self on being a practical man and regards all scientific 

 work as unpractical, though whatever is known of the 

 e.xact relation between cause and effect in all branches 

 of agriculture, and whenever fact can be placed against 

 opinion as regards diseases of animals and plants, the 

 credit belongs to the scientific investigator and not 

 to the actual cultivator of the soil.' 



Logarithms. 



The Tercentenary of the death of John Napier, the 

 inventor of logarithms, who died April 4, l(jl7, helps to 

 remind us how little interest is as a rule paid to the 

 li\es of our great men of science, for, both by the brilli- 

 ance of his genius and by the influence of his discovery 

 on succeeding generations, Napier takes high rank 

 among the greatest of Scotchmen. Few results of far- 

 reaching importance have had a greater influence on 

 progress than logarithms, which are employed in the 

 everyday routine work of the engineer, the surveyor, 

 the actuary, and in scientific work generally. 



Everyone knows that the most tedious operations 

 to be performed in arithmetical calculations are those 

 that involve multiplication and division: addition and 

 subtraction are, comparatively speaking, simple. Now, 

 if a person is in possession of a table of logarithms 

 and knows how to use it, any calculation involving 

 multiplication or division can be converted into one 

 involving, respectively, addition and subtraction. 

 Similarly, finding the power or the root of a number 

 is merely a question of multiplication or division. An 

 example, given in the May number of Chamher's Jour- 

 nal, shows how much time is saved by utilizing the 

 process inventi'd by Napier. Suppose we wish to find 

 what answci- we should get by multiplying ()7.5 by 

 873. All we have to do is to turn up our table 

 of logarithms, which tells that the logarithm of (i7.5 is 

 2-.S29.S03.S, and that of873 is 2-9410142. These numbe:s 



