312 



THE AGKICULTURAL NEWS. 



GCTOBEE 6, 1917. 



EDITORIAL 



Head Office 



NOTICES. 



— Barbados. 



Letters and matter for publication, as well as all 

 ■pecimens for naming, should be addressed to the 

 Commissioner, Imperial Department of Agriculture 

 Barbados. 



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



AgrictdUire for the West Indies D.Sc, F.I.C., F.C.S. 

 SCIENTIFIC STAFF. 



Scientific Assistant and fW. R. Dunlop.* 



Assistant Editor \Rev. C. H. Branch, B.A. 



„ , , ., JH. A. Ballou, M.Sc.t 



Entomologists -j j (. Hutson. B.A., Ph.D. 



Mycologist W. Nowell, D.I.C. 



Chief Clerk 

 Clerical Assistants 



CLERICAL STAFF. 



A. a. Howell. 

 ("L. A. Corbin. 

 1 1 



■ P. Taylor.* 

 [K. R. C. Foster. 

 Typist Miss B. Robinson. 



Assistant Typist Miss W. Ellis. 



Assistant for Publications A. B. Price, Fell. Journ. Inst. 



*Sec<jndfd for Military Service, 

 i Seconded for Ditty in Egypt. 



^gricullurat ITeiufj 



Vol. XVI. SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6,1917. No. 403. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



Contents of Present Issue. 



The editorial treats of the training needful for 

 plant pathologists in the future. 



The articles on pages oOH, :?18, ami -^19 may be well 

 read together: the}- all have reference to the connexion 

 between cotton stainers and internal boll disease, and 

 their influence on the yield of cotton in certain islands. 



On page 301) there is given an outline of recent 

 theories on the physical basis of biological characters. 



Under Insect Notes, page 814, an article appears 

 on the life-history of warble flies, a serious pest to cattle 

 in lOnrope and North America. 



•West Indian BuUetin', Vol. XVI, No. 3. 



Number o of Volume XVI of the West Indian 

 5i(.iie<iw has just been issued. It contains several papers 

 of exceptional interest, based on original investigations. 

 Questions relating to cotton are dealt with in the 

 principal articles. The first paper by Mr. S. C. Harland, 

 B.Sc, Assistant Agricultural .Superintendent, St. Vin- 

 cent, gives an account of manurial experiments with. 

 Sea Island cotton in St. Vincent, with some notes on 

 factors affecting the yield. It is illustrated by careful 

 diagrams. Mr. Harland also contributes a note on 

 resistance to black scale in cotton, and a short paper on 

 manurial experiments witli arrowroot in St. Vincent. 

 In the second paper Mr. W. Nowell, D.I.C, Mycologist 

 on the staff of this Department, gives an account of his 

 investigation with regard to internal disease of cotton 

 bolls in the West Indies. The third paper, which 

 is illustrated, is by Mr. W. N. Sands, F.L.S., Agricultural 

 Superintendent, St. Vincent. Abstracts of these papers 

 appear elsewhere in this issue. Short notes follow: the 

 first, by Dr. H. A. Tempany, D.Sc, F.I.C., now Superin- 

 tendent of Agriculture in Mauritius, in association with 

 Mr. R. E. Kelsick, Acting Chemical Assistant, St. Kitts, 

 explains a modified method for determining carbonates 

 in soil: the second, also by Dr. Tempany, deals with the 

 determination of non-fatty solids in milk from the 

 specific gravity at tropical temperatures. The last 

 paper describes the course taken by the hurricanes of 

 191ti, with notes on hurricanes of 1912-15. This, by 

 Richard Hanson Weightman, is reprinted from the 

 Monthli/ Weather lievieiv, U.S.A. Department of 

 Agriculture Weather Bureau. The number is concluded 

 by a hurricane cable code used in the West Indies by 

 Agricultural Officers associated with the Imperial 

 Department. 



— I -^^^^- 



Agricultural Instruction m Antigua. 



The officer of the Agricultural Department whose 

 duty it is to visit the lands rented from the Govern- 

 ment in the English Harbour District, for the pur- 

 pose of giving instruction to the cultivators, reports that 

 the young cotton crop presents a healthy appearance. 

 The occurrence of leaf-blister mite is much less than 

 last year: on only one of the holdings were the plants 

 attacked to any extent. This is attributable probably 

 to the feet that immediately adjoining this holding 

 is a field of cotton plants left from last season, 

 which are badly inflected. It ought always to be 

 borne in mind that injury to the growmg cotton 

 crop, both one's own and one's neighbour's, is sure to 

 result if diseased plants from the last year are left 

 undestroyed. It is essential that old cotton should 

 be destroyed efficiently at the close of the reaping 

 season. If necessary, legislative powers should be 

 invoked to effect this. 



The corn crop in the same district is being reaped, 

 and is giving large returns. There has been a ready 

 local sale of the product at a good price, and it 

 seems likely that the whole crop will be disposed of 

 in a similar way. 



More land in the district is being taken up 

 by peasant cultivators, who intend growing cotton 

 principally. 



