240 



itself badly and slowly, the cleansing action of the withdrawal of 

 the flood water is lost — result: a sloppy, acid land, infested with 

 pests of every description — a foul land. That is precisely what 

 this land is, which is now dealt with. A foul land, no matter how 

 great its M^ealth of nutrient material, cannot be fit for intensive 

 cultivation except after a period of repeated tillage and, even then, 

 if the surrounding land is allowed to remain foul, the han^ests will 

 be precarious. It is said by people who know the country well, 

 that it is very difficult to rear good dependable garden crops in 

 the ricli lowlands of the East Coast of Sumatra, because of the 

 peristent attacks of pests ; and this is explained by the fact that 

 so much of the land, after the tobacco crops have been harvested, 

 is allowed to revert to rank vegetation over which parasitic life 

 runs riot. 



'This digression will serve to explain the failure of the Lima 

 bean crop in the Economic Gardens to come up to expectations. 

 The failure of a crop, however, does not necessarily imply the 

 degeneration of the seed; but certain figures of weighings taken 

 by the writer at different periods bear on this point and they axe 

 here given. 



A. One handful of beans of the third generation put on one 

 side of the scale numbered 55 beans : one handful of beans of the 

 fourth generation put on the other side tilted the scale with 56 

 beans. 



B. 100 seeds taken from a parcel of Lima bean seed received 

 from the firm of A. H. Dreer, Philadelphia, on 19th June, 1919, 

 were put on one side of the scale and it took 120 of our local 

 selected seed, after one month's drying to tilt the scale. (The local 

 seed were the offspring of seeds received from the same firm the 

 year before ) . 



C. One pound of beans picked on 23rd May 1919, and kept to 

 dry for 8 days contained 916 beans, whereas, 



D. one pound of beans picked on 20th. October, (i.e. the fol- 

 lowing generation) and kept to dry for 12 days contained 1103 

 beans. 



E. One pound of beans selected for sowing in October, con- 

 tained, after one month drying, 910 beans. 



As will be perceived, while some of these figures point to a 

 decided falling-off of the beans in w^eight as sbown in B and by 

 comparing C and D, others. A, and a comparison between C and 

 E do not point to the same conclusion. 



In B, however, we have clear evidence, (several weighings were 

 made with miich the same results) that the local bean, after nearly 

 twelve months cultivation in the Economic Gardens, has lost 20 

 per cent of its weight. Is that fact to be taken as a proof that 

 the Lima Bean cannot establi.sh itself in this country without 

 degeneration? It must be remembered that the seeds sent out by 

 the great seedsmen of Europe and America have been evolved by 

 severe selection through successive generations under trained ob- 

 servers to produce a type of bean in this case suitable to a set of 

 local conditions which may, or may not, be re})roducible elsewhere. 



