146 



[February, 1912. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 



DEPARTMENT OP AGRICULTURE, 

 PHILIPPINE ISLANDS. 



The New Director op Agriculture. 



(From the Philippine Agricultural 

 Review Vol. VI., No. 2, December, 1911.) 



On October 16, 1911, Mr. F. W, Taylor, 

 of Denver, Colorado, assumed the duties 

 of Director of Agriculture. 



Mr. Taylor was for some years, 

 beginning in 1891, professer of horticul- 

 ture at the University of Nebraska and 

 at the same time in charge of all the 

 university extension work — including 

 farmers' institutes— in that state. From 

 1897 until 1905 he was connected with the 

 Omaha, Buffalo and St. Louis Exposi- 

 tions as chief of the agricultural and 

 horticultural exhibits. These depart- 

 ments at St. Louis covered 26 acres 

 (10'5 hectares) of floor space, more than 

 one-fourth of the entire exhibit space 

 in the exposition. Exhibits were main- 

 tained by all but two or three of the 

 States and Territories of the Union and 

 by forty-four foreign countries. In 

 assembling the exhibits for these various 

 expositions Mr. Taylor visited every 

 State in the Union and also a number 

 of foreign countries ; in addition, he has 

 travelled very widely in the investigation 

 of agricultural conditions — with special 

 reference to horticulture— in many coun- 

 tries, including Mexico and practically 

 every part of Europe. 



For the last five years Mr. Taylor has 

 devoted all of his time to agricultural 

 work in the arid regions of the West 

 with particular reference to irrigation. 

 Two projects, of which he has had the 

 management, have spent several million 

 dollars in irrigation construction, result- 

 ing the reclamation of more than 200,000 

 acres (80,940 hectares) of land. 



THE VALUE OF QUININE IN COM- 

 BATING MALARIAL FEVER. 



By S. S. Abrahamson. 



Official of the 1 Netherlands-Indies Asso- 

 ciation for the Promotion of the In- 

 terests of the Cinchona Planters.' 

 The value of this little booklet is not 

 lessened by the fact that it is somewhat 

 in the nature of an advertisement for 

 one of the staple products of Java. 

 Though it neither contains nor professes 

 to contain anything to throw new light 

 on the development or treatment of 

 Malaria, it places the main facts, in a 



pleasingly concise form and free from all 

 technicalities, before the public, and 

 emphasizes the primary importance of 

 Quinine in the campaign against mala- 

 rial fever. 



The statistics (on page 18) showing the 

 results of the Governmental distribution 

 of the drug in Italy are most convincing. 

 It is here stated that : -" the mortality 

 from Malaria from 1895 to 1901 amounted 

 to an average of about 15,000 deaths per 

 annum (out of a population of 35,000,000). 

 State action against this iucreasiner 

 mortality commenced at the end of 1900 

 and several laws followed in succession. 

 From distributing Quinine at a low 

 price the Italian Government has now 

 brought about the gratuitous distri- 

 bution of Quinine prepared by the 

 State — also as a prophylactic — to the 

 needy. The moral and social result 

 has been the diminution of the mor- 

 tality from Malaria from 15,865 in 1900 

 to 3,463 in 1908." 



To show the enormous mortality from 

 fevers (principally malaria) in British 

 India, figures are quoted for the decade 

 1899 to 1908, from which it appears that 

 there has been a gradual increase in the 

 number of deaths from 4,085,455 to 

 5,424,372, the latter representing a 

 death rate — from fevers alone — of 23'96 

 per 1000. 



The author considers that mosquito 

 campaigns and the destruction of breed- 

 ing places, though of real value, are of 

 secondary importance to the distri- 

 bution and use of quinine — either as a 

 prophylactic or in the treatment of the 

 disease. He also draws attention to the 

 fact that though Ceylon was at one 

 time the principal exporter of Cinchona, 

 Java now supplies nearly all the world's 

 production of bark ; and that Amster- 

 dam now practically monopolises the 

 bark market. 



There is a somewhat misleading state- 

 ment on page 3, where the posture ot 

 the hind legs is given as one of the 

 distinguishing characters between Ano- 

 pheline and Culicine mosquitoes. The 

 latter are represented as using all three 

 pairs of limbs for support, in contradis> 

 tinction to the Anophelines which raise 

 the hind limbs when at rest. This is not 

 quite correct. A large number of Culi- 

 cine mosquitoes habitually erect their 

 hind legs when resting or feeding. The 

 noticeable difference is more in the 

 attitude of the body which— in Culicines 

 — is carried more or less parallel with 

 the wall jor whatever they may be rest- 



