66V SCIENTIFIC NOTES. 



employed for its production. The sugar is of excellent flavour and may- 

 be refined to any degree of whiteness. 



Experimental Farms in South Africa. — A colonial botanist, 

 writing under date, " Riversdale, Oct. 17," says: — "In developing the 

 resources of the colony, much may be done by experiments on vegetable 

 productions of the land which may be turned to economic use, or may 

 be otherwise employed in the arts and manufactures. Amongst these are 

 the following : — Experiments on its grasses, which are all important to 

 a pastoral people ; experiments on its Olives, of which we have more 

 than one species indigenous at the Cape, and it remains to be proved 

 whether the land can or cannot be made to produce the cultivated olive 

 or to produce the wild olive in such a form that the cultivation of it 

 might be remunerative ; experiments on its Indigo plants, of which we 

 have a great many species, and in regard to which the same remarks 

 may be made which have been made in regard to the olive ; experiments 

 on its numerous Euphorbias, the milk of which seems to be similar in 

 its constituents to that producing the India-rubber and the gutta-percha, 

 for which there is now a great demand ; experiments on its Aloes and its 

 Buchus, the products of many of both of which are already exported in 

 considerable quantities ; experiments on its Castor-oil plants and its 

 Candleberry myrtle, both of which are growing abundantly in many 

 localities. There are also experiments to be tried on the preparation of 

 the refuse of the Maize to fit it for economic uses; on the cultivation of 

 Flax, of Rape, and of Mustard, for seed and oil, on the cultivation of hill 

 Rice and Cotton, and on the improvement of Tobacco and Wine. All of 

 these experiments ought to be made with the accuracy of research for 

 scientific purposes, with accurate details of weights and measures, of time 

 actually employed in culture, &c. ; of actual expense ; and of actual 

 pecuniary value of returns obtained. And, for the good of the colony, 

 it is desirable that these should be published. It is too much to expect 

 that this will be done by men actually engaged in agriculture, finding it 

 necessary to give their whole time to what more immediately demands 

 their attention. But there are many who would gladly avail themselves 

 of the results obtained by such experiments if explicit statements of the 

 experiments were furnished to them. By the establishment of an expe- 

 rimental farm the number who would do so would probably be greatly 

 increased if provision were made for the board and training of young 

 men on the farm, while their training there would fit them for carrying 

 out similar experiments on a larger scale in the field. To teach men to 

 philosophise is of more importance than to teach them philosophy, and 

 to educate is of more importance than to instruct. By the labour of 

 such young men the expense of the establishment would be somewhat 

 reduced. Of the experiments of Liebig in agricultural chemistry, it is 

 said (I know not with what truth) that the whole have been conducted 

 under his direction by young men paying a high fee for permission to 



