464 



[December, 1912. 



THE COTTON CONGRESS IN EGYPT. 



Spinners' and Growers' Views. 

 The Cotton Spinners' final conference was held at the Egyptian 

 University on Friday night, says The Times of November 11th. Sir 

 Charles Macara presided over the meeting which lasted until a late hour. 

 Abaza Bey delivered a lecture on cotton cultivation and mixture on 

 plantations. 



Afterwards a most interesting debate took place on the policy to be 

 pursued in regard to growers' and spinners' requirements. The spinners 

 disapproved of the creation of new varieties of cotton and demanded a 

 continuance of the production of existing varieties except Aflifi, and the 

 concentration of attention on obtaining regularity of quality and length 

 of staple. They recommended that ginning should be longer after pick- 

 ing as the staple matures insufficiently under the present system, and 

 strongly condemned the custom of damping during ginning. 



Answering the growers' appeal for higher prices, the delegates con- 

 tended that prices already were too high and recommended that since 

 present values appear to be an insufficient recompense, the grower should 

 be encouraged to devise scientific or other means to increase the yield per 

 feddan. 



INTENSIVE POULTRY FARMING. 



The intensive cultivation of hens is about to be taken up in England 

 on a great scale. In America which provides the model for the largest 

 of these ventures, 4,500 birds are called a unit and are "cultivated" on 

 as little as twelve acres. Each of these units consists of three houses in 

 which 1,500 birds are kept. Single comb white Leghorns are the favourite 

 birds ; and in recent experiment they yielded the extraordinary average 

 of 146 eggs per bird within the year, or 2,190,000 eggs to 15,000 birds. 



A very considerable farm is being taken on the Wiltshire Downs in 

 order to try the system, the hens being at first imported from the 

 American farm. The houses are simple and cheap, being only 7 ft. high 

 in front and 5 ft. at the back. Occasional " half-way partitions " of the 

 sort seen in some school dormitories are fixed at intervals and this is 

 almost the only extra equipment. 



One of the prime advantages of this new intensive system is that it can 

 be worked on a small scale in a town garden or on the vast scale practised 

 in New Jersey with such remarkable results. Plenty of light, plenty of 

 straw and the rejection for laying purposes of all hens ten months after 

 they have first begun to lay — these are given as the prime necessities of 

 the system.— Daily Mail. 



THE WICKHAM SMOKER. 



(Illustration. ) 



We give an illustration of the disc cylinder, smoke flue and feeding 

 tank of Mr. Wickham's smoker B Model for curing hard Para now at 

 work at Peradeniya. The latex can be 9een flowing into the cylinder 

 which, revolving, carries it round for contact with the hot smoke issuing 

 from the flue. 



