A FORTNIGHTLY REVIEW 



OF THE 



IMPERIAL DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE FOR THE WEST INDIES. 



80TAIKJC 



Vol. XVI. No. 403. 



BARBADOS, OCTOBER 6, 1917, 



Price Id, 



CONTENTS, 



Antigua, Agricultural In- 

 struction in 



Barbados, Agriculture in 



Biological Characters, 

 Adaptation and the 

 Physical Basis of ... 



Caicos Islands, New Indus- 

 tries in 



Camphor Oil from the 

 Federated Malay States 

 and Mauritius 



Canes Damaged by Fire, 

 Quality of „ 



Coco-nut Butter, Recipe 

 for Making 



Cotton Stainer in St. Vin- 

 cent, Observations <m 

 The 



Department News 



Dejjartmental Reports 



Gleanings 



Insect Notes: — 



Warble Flies 



Items of Local Interest ... 



Market Reports 



Molasses as a Manure ... 



312 

 315 



309 



313 



317 

 313 



317 



308 

 317 

 310 

 316 



314 

 311 

 320 

 313 



Page. Page. 



Notes and Comments ... 312 



Pig.s, Economical Feeding 

 of 3:5 



Plant Diseases: — 



Internal Disease of 

 Cotton Bolls in the 

 West Indies 318 



Plant Pathology, Train- 

 ing in .305 



Potatoes in the West 

 Indies, Cultivation of ... 307 



Queensland, Combining 

 General Agiiculture with 

 Sugar Growing in ... 313 



St. Vincent, Biological 

 Factors Atl'ecting Cotton 

 Production in 319 



St. A'incent, Government 

 Granary in 307 



Scientitic Societies, Con- 

 joint Board of 313 



Sugar Market, The 319 



The 'West Indian Bulletin', 

 Vol. XVI, No. 3 312 



Wheat and Flour, Price 

 of 309 



Training in Plant Pathology. 



)N address with the above title, delivered 

 iby Mr. J. Ramsbottom, of the Botanical 

 1 Department of the British Museum, at a 

 meeting of the British Mycological Society, i.s published 

 in the Transactions of that body for the year 191(i. 

 The subject has a special interest for those tropical 

 colonics which depend on the British universities for 

 the supply of the men who function as investigators of 

 plant disease. 



While, characteristically, there has not been in the 

 United Kingflom any special service for plant pathology 

 worth mentioning, there exist plenty^of facilities for 



a many-sided, if unorganized attack on any problem of 

 the kind which arises. Museum and University 

 Departments, laboratories and libraries are all at hand. 

 The position is very different in the tropics. There, 

 the individual investigator is removed from opportuni- 

 ties of supplementing his education in the scientific 

 aspects of his subject. For even the simplest form of 

 contact, that which is made through reference libraries 

 and current literature, his means are at best 

 inadequate. From such circumstances arises the 

 necessity for an initial training which goes further than 

 the provision of a general groundwork of botanical 

 science. 



Mr. Ramsbottom points out that the practice has 

 been to appoint students direct to pathological posts 

 after a training in botany pure and simple, and one in 

 which the specialized studies of the later part of the 

 course have usually had little relevance to the work 

 of investigating plant diseases. 



While It may be claimed that the type of training 

 indicated has not, in recent years, been quite general, 

 and that it never prevented, though undoubtedly it 

 delayed, the production of reasonablj- good results, there 

 can be little argument as to the advisability of provid- 

 ing a special training in this subject. One does not 

 take a student from a course in pure zoology and set 

 him to practise as a veterinarian. 



It then becomes necessary to decide as to the 

 essential elements of such a training, and first of all 

 to gain a proper conception of the work which will 

 present itself when a post is taken up. It is in this 

 connexion that the experience of agricultural depart- 

 ments, to which, in practice, the plant pathologist is 

 attached, may atYord useful evidence. 



