Vol. XVI. No. 402. 



THE AGRICULTURAL XEWS. 



29» 



'The yield of potatoes here is about i tons per acre in 

 fair season, and I found I got 40-63 per cent, of meal from 

 them, or 910 lb. meal per ton of potatoes. 



'Putting potatoes at a fair selling rate here. £1 os. 

 a ton in the ground, the cost of digging at 3s. a ton, and of 

 delivering at slicing machine at (id. a ton, the cost of a ton 

 of potatoes at the siiccr comes to £\ 8s. 6rf. This gives 

 17 barrels of potato slices dried at ^)d. a barrel = V.s. \d. 

 which yield .5f barrels of meal (910 lb. i at a cost of grinding, 

 in my case, say, of Id per barrel. The total cost of 910 lb 

 meal in my case was therefore about £1 16s. Id, or about 

 £4 9,f Trf. per ton, exclusive of cost of barrels and cooperage. 



'If anyone is going in for meal on a large scale, 1 should 

 think he would do well to try an American fruit evaporator 

 for drying the slices; they must be dried as quickly as 

 possible and quite thoroughly; they must be quite brittle 

 when they are dried, not in the least leathery, or the meal 

 will not keep for any length of time. I lost .several lots 

 of slices owing to cloudy weather prevailing when the slices 

 were laid out to dry. the meal from them was tainted, and 

 would not keep properly. 



'I append a copy of Dr. Voelcker's report on a sample 

 of my meal made in the above mannen: "The meal is well 

 dried, containing only 12 per cent, of water and should keep 

 perfectly well. It contains practically 10 per cent, of sugar, 

 with 67 per cent, of starch and digestible carbohydrates, 

 5 per cent, of nitrogenous or proteid matters, with a not 

 inconsiderable portion of mineral (bone- producing) matter. 

 The percentage of indigestible (woody) fiurj is very small" '. 



100-00 

 -^Containing nitrogen -82 



t Including sand -03 



It must be observed that these prices require reconsid- 

 eration in view of changed conditions. Attention may also 

 be drawn to the fact that chips keep longer than meal in 

 a good condition. It would seem to be better therefore to 

 store sweet potatoes in the form of chips, and to grind them 

 into meal as required for u.se. It must also be remembered 

 that in the storage of potato products the same precaution 

 against weevils and moulds must be taken as in the storage 

 of grain. 



From the foregoing it would apjiear that appliances 

 such as are used in temperate climates for slicing or pulping 

 mangolds, turnips, and other roots, would serve for the 

 purpose of slicing sweet potatoes for drying. 



^ The Governor of Barbados has issued an Order, dated 



September 17, 1917, requiring every person owning or having 

 power to sell or dispose of any sugar (whether locally made 

 or imported) or any choice molasses, su :h sugar or molasses 

 being intended to be sold or otherwise disposed of, and not 

 for personal or domestic use, to make a return in writing to 

 the Colonial Secretary by September 26 of the quantities 

 and qualities of sugar and molasses so owned. Previously to 

 this, by Proclamation dated September 6, the Governor had 

 prohibited the exportation of any sugar from the island, 

 e.vcept by special license. 



TOMATOES 



The tomato {Lycopersicum esculen'um) is one of the 

 plants of the New World which have over-run the Old 

 World. Its native habitat being probably Peru, the tomato 

 was not known in Earope until after the discovery of 

 America. In Parkinson's quaint 'Terrestial Paradise', dedi- 

 cated to Queen Henrietta the wife of Charles I, there is a 

 very good description of the tomato, together with quite 

 an accurate wood-cut under the name of 'Love-apple'. After 

 the manner of the old herbalists he attributes to the fruit 

 many wonderful virtues. From the time of its introduction 

 into Europe the tomato has steadily grown in favour as 

 a vegetable, rather than a fruit, and the results of selection 

 by horticulturists have been to develop the original wild 

 tomato — a berry not bigger than a cherry — into a succulent 

 fruit almost the size of an apple. 



This fruit has been long valued and cultivated in the- 

 West Indies, but there has always been some uncertainty as 

 to results. Imported seed of the best varieties ran to foliagfr 

 rather than to fruit, except during a restricted season 

 of the year; and even when decent fruit was obtained, the 

 seeds of those fruit tended to revert to the small wild 

 type under the conditions in the West Indies. 



In Agriculture, May 1917, a journal published under 

 the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, Cuba, there 

 is a very interesting account of some experime its with 

 tomatoes conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station. 

 The conclusions reached in some directions will be of use 

 to growers of tomatoes in other West Indian islands. 



In the first place no less than eighteen varieties were 

 experimented with, one of them being the native small-fruited 

 variety. Only a few of these does the writer in Aijriculture 

 consider to be worth cultivating under the conditions of 

 temperature, etc., prevailing in Cuba. 



The experiments described were chietly directed, however, 

 to the question of the advi-sabilitj' of, and the results that 

 might be expected from, a system of pruning or training the 

 plants, or both. In these experiments the most suitable and 

 economical form of support for training the plants was found 

 to be a trellis constructed of two or three wires supported 

 on hardwood posts, to which trellis the plants were attached 

 by ordinary twine. 



The conclusions reached after two years' experiments 

 are: a uniformly large increase in numbers of fruit, and 

 total weight of fruit produced as the result of supporting the 

 plants over the yield of the control plot of unsupported 

 plants. 



Besides the increase in numbers and total weight the 

 average size of the fruit was also augmented by training. 



Pruning to various extents, as compared with no 

 pruning at all, generally decreased the crop yield, both as 

 regards total weight and number of fruit. 



Pruning, however, resulted in an increase in the average 

 weight of each fruit. 



The largest total yield both as regards number of fruit 

 and total weight of crop was from the plots trained on 

 a trellis and unpruned. 



The article quoted from goes on to say that the tomato 

 is somewhat .sensitive as to its water-supply. Speaking 

 generally the soil should be main'ained in a moist condition 

 to obtain the best results. Excessive moisture tends to 

 produce a rank growth of foliage at the expense of fruit 

 production, while lack of mo'sture will seriously lessen the 

 crop. Judici'ius irrigation, if practicable, greatly increases 

 the yield, increases the size of the individual fruits, and ix 

 some degree hastens maturity of the fruit. 



