197 



facturers persist in using this old-fashioned and more or less 

 execrable word "cocoa" instead of cacao. Not only in resem- 

 blance of words, then, but actually in commerce, do these two 

 comparatively new vegetable "butters" stand as rivals. — O. W. 

 Barrett, in Pliilippiiic Agricultural Reviczv. 



WATERIXG OF CUTS IX RUBBER TREES. 



A paper has recently been published in the Agricultural Bulletin 

 of the Federated Malay States (Vol. I, No. 7) which is important 

 from two points of view. In the first place it contains results that 

 are likely to be of practical value, and in the second place it af- 

 fords an example of an original investigation that has been under- 

 taken by a planter. The first experiment in the investigation was 

 designed to show whether the commonly practised custom of 

 watering cuts lengthened or shortened the duration of the drip- 

 ping period. In round numbers it was found that when the cut 

 was watered the tree continued to drip for eighty-one minutes, 

 when the cut was not watered, for 102 minutes ; that when the 

 tree was watered it yielded 250 drops, when not watered 510 

 drops. A second and more extensive experiment led to the aston- 

 ishing conclusion that one thousand trees would give about j4 lb. 

 less rubber a day if water were poured on the cuts than they 

 would give if the cuts were not watered. 



The reason for this appears to be that the addition of water 

 induces coagulation. — Agricultural A^ezcs. 



LIME JUICE AND SCURVY. 



The most notable example of the efifect of certain substances 

 existing in food in only minute traces is afforded by the investi- 

 gations that have led to the discovery of the cause of beri-beri. 

 Volume IX of the Annual Reports of the Chemical Society ( 1912 ) 

 contains a review of this work, where the well-known fact is re- 

 ferred to, that the disease is prevalent among rice-eating com- 

 munities in which decorticated or polished rice is consumed.. 

 Whole rice does not induce the disease. The substance inhibiting 

 beri-beri has been extracted from rice husks by water or alcohol, 

 and an alkaloid has been isolated to which the name of oryzanin 

 is given. Small quantities of this substance keep animals free 

 from the disease. 



More recently, in the Journal of the Chemical Society for 

 March, 1913, an investigation along similar lines is referred to, 

 which has brought to light the fact that lime juice contains an anti- 

 neuritic substance which is probably a specific cure for scurvy. 



