ToL. V. No. 114. 



THE AGRICULTURAL NEWS. 



285 



DISEASES OP SWEET POTATOS. 



The importance of the sweet jjotato as an article 

 of food throughout the West India Islands renders it 

 necessary to be constantly watching for any trouble 

 that is likely seriously to affect the value of the crop. 



Oue of the diseases that cause dainage to this crop in 

 the West Indies is due to the white uiyielium of a fungus 

 that envelops the roots and eventually raiders them unfit for 

 food. Investigation tends to show that this mycelium 

 belongs to a species of JJarasmiiis. It is advisable to use all 

 sweet potatos that are fit for consumption after being 

 attacked as soon as possible, and no attempt .should be made 

 to store them for any length of time. Those that are badly 

 attacked should be removed from the field and destroyed 

 either by fire or by burying with lime. 



Bulletin No. 135 of the Alabama Agricultural E.xperiment 

 ■Station deals with several fungoid diseases of the sweet 

 potato in Alabama, and the investigations that are now being 

 undertaken in that state seem to show that the greatest loss 

 is e.>:perienced in the storage, rather than during the growing 

 season. 



One of the most serious diseases is the ' wiiite rot,' which 

 is caused by a fungus that attacks the roots and changes their 

 tissues into a whitish granular substance. 



Although few of the diseases described in this preliminary 

 report are known at present in the West Indies, the follow- 

 ing remedial measures, as put forward in this report by 

 Dr. E. Mead Wilcox against diseases of the sweet potato, may 

 be of interest: — 



1. Avoid sets from any diseased plants. 



all 

 be 



3. 



Destroy, either with fire or by burying with hme, 

 diseased potatos, and do not allow them to 

 stored or to remain lying about the field. 

 In storing the potatos, proper attention should be 

 given to their ventillation, especially during the 

 sweating period just after the roots are taken from 

 the field. 

 4. During storage no water should be allowed to get 

 upon the potatos whenever any are taken from the 

 heap. 

 The value of the sweet potato for consumption, and also 

 as a rotation crop in the West Indies, should induce planters 

 to prevent the spread of any disease that attacks it, and more 

 especially when it is remembered that in Texas a disease that 

 attacks sweet potatos also attacks the cotton plant. 



POLISHED RIOE. 



The Sugar Planters' Journal, of August 4, 1906, 

 ■quotes Mr. David Fairchild, of the U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, as follows on the subject of a more 

 sensible consumption of rice : — 



Rice is the greatest food staple in the world, more people 

 living on it than on any other, and yet Americans know so 

 little about it that they are actually throwing away the best 

 part of the grains of rice and are eating only the tasteless, 

 starchy, proteiudess remainder. 



This American fad for polished rice is the most wasteful 

 and unreasonable of any fashion connected with our food 

 products. To a Japanese or a native of rice-growing, rice- 

 eating China this fashion is impossible to understand, and 

 our Carolina golden polished rice, which we consider the 

 finest in the world, is so tasteless that those Orientals who 

 live oil the Pacific Coast import unpolished rice from Japan 

 and China for their use, refusing to eat our fair but tasteless 

 product. 



The practice of polishing rice continues in the south 

 because the American rice buying public is guided entirely by 

 looks in its retail purchases. Rice, as sold by the Americaa 

 retailers, is a pretty grain, each kernel as smooth and shiny 

 as a glass bead. In this very-glassiness lies the deceit, and, 

 were it not for a false fashion, tjie buyer would no more expect 

 rice to be smooth and polished'^than he would wheat or rye. 



Like so many grains, after they are threshed, the rice 

 grain ~ is made up of a starchy central portion, inclosed in 

 a delicate, more nutritious cgyering. This thin, rich, outer 

 part is highly nutritious and fullof oily flavouring matter. It 

 is not useless like the pubescence on a peach or the bhiom on 

 a plum, but is a nitrogenous coating full of nourishment. 

 Each rice kernel contains, in common with all seeds, a living 

 germ, and in this germ the richest food matters of the seed 

 are concentrated. Yet, because of the American fancy for 

 polished rice, large nulls have been erected in the rice-growing 

 south, which rub off, by means of leather polishers, this outer 

 layer and, in the process, remove the nutritious germ ; 

 a coating of hot paraffin is even given the kernels. For years 

 the ' polishiugs,' which contain the germs and rich outer 

 coats were thrown away or sold for $8 and ijlO a ton 

 for cattle food. Recently the price of them has risen, 

 because the dairymen have discovered their food value for 

 milch cattle and people have found out that they make good 

 cakes, but even now the remarkable condition prevails which 

 forces the handlers of a great staple product to subject it to 

 an unnecessary, expensive process in order to remove from it 

 the most nutritious portions. 



Oflicial chemical analyses of poli-shed and unpolished 

 rices show that the unpolished grain has over 11 per cent, 

 more of proteids and 65 per cent, more of oily matters than 

 the Dolislied. 



RAINFALL IN GRENADA. 



The Proceedings of the Grenada Agricultural and 

 Commercial Society contain the following analysis of 

 the rainfall returns at the Richmond Hill station for 

 the fifteen years, 1891-1905 :— 



Average annual rainfall in the fifteen years 

 Minimum rainfall in one month 



,. ,1 .: yeiu- 



Maximum ,, ,, month 



., ,, year 



78-34 inches. 

 0'4i) inches in 

 May 1899. 



56-69 inches in 

 1891. 



20*90 inches in 

 November 1890. 

 10589 inches in 

 1892. 



