638 EXPERIMENT STATION RECORD. 



vides for constant renewal of the top of the tree. The conditions of climate 

 and soil may be ameliorated somewhat by the use of companion and shade 



crops. 



Date palm culture and commerce in Nefzaoua, Jeangeraed {Bui. Dir. Agr. 

 Com. ct VoJon. [Tunis], 13 (1909), No. 51, pp. 206-229).— A brief account is 

 given of the methods of planting and caring for date palms, and harvesting 

 and marketing the fruit, together with notes on the more important varieties 

 growing in Nefzaoua, including their nomenclature, age of bearing, character, 

 yield, and market valuation of the fruit. 



Report of the inspector of coconut plantations for the year 1908, L. C. 

 Brown {Agr. Bui. Straits and Fed. Malay States, S {1909), No. 9, pp. ^6- 

 j^^j^)_ — A brief report on the condition of coconut plantations in the 4 Federated 

 Malay States. The area under coconuts for the year 1908 approximated 

 118,697 acres as compared with 112.500 acres in 1907. 



Report on the activities in pomology and g'ardening, E. Junge {Ber. K. 

 Lehrunst. Wein, Ohst u. Gartciibau (iciscnheiiti, 1908, pp. 'tO-65, figs. -)).— This 

 is a report on horticultural operations for the year, including notes on the con- 

 dition of the station orchards, data on variety tests, lists of orchard varieties 

 included in new plantings, and an outline of outdoor and indoor work with 

 vegetables. 



Some experiments in the application of carbolineum to fruit trees during the 

 summer period are also reported. Judging from the one season's work, sum- 

 mer spraying with carbolineum does not seem to be highly successful in com- 

 bating insect pests and plant diseases. 



FORESTRY. 



Measurements of the effects of forest cover upon the conservation of snow 

 waters, W. K. Mattoon {Forestry Quart., 7 {1909), No. 3, pp. 2//.5-2//.S ) . — The 

 author reports observations made on the progress of snowfall and subsequent 

 melting in a virgin stand of western yellow pine in northern Arizona, and on an 

 adjacent treeless park covering an ai*ea of several square miles. The observa- 

 tions, which were made during the period from February 26 to April 25, included 

 the measurements of each successive snowfall and the total depth of snow at 

 intervals of 7 days. The progress of aecunuilation and subsequent melting of 

 the snow in the two locations is summarized as follows : 



" The total snowfall in the forest is somewhat more than over the open parks, 

 due chiefly to accelerated wind velocity over the parks, resulting in a lighter 

 deposition of snow, a case similar to the deposition of silt in stream courses. 



" Due to protection afforded by the forest cover against extremes of cold re- 

 sulting in a higher average temperature, the process of melting during the 

 spring commences considerably earlier in the forest than in the adjacent open 

 park. 



" The low mininuim daily temperatures in the park account for the formation 

 of a thick layer of ice at the base of the snow during the early spring. This in 

 turn serves to retain the moisture above the soil. 



" During the mouth of March the park remained almost entirely covered with 

 a deep and quite uniform layer of- snow and ice, while in the forest the snow 

 cover was much broken along rock ledges and banked high in the natural tree 

 avenues, and the total amount of snow and water content above the soil surface 

 was decidedly less per unit of area in the forest than in the park. The condition 

 strongly suggested an apparent advantage of a treeless over a forested area in 

 conserving the winter snowfall and storing a supply of moisture for distribu- 

 tion in the late spring when most needed. 



