Miscellaneous. 



156 



[February, 1612 



been raised on a large scale by Mr. 

 Bovell, and continuously selected from, 

 as well as hybridized. 



The result has surpassed expectation. 

 One seedling cane, for example, B. 3405, 

 gave an increase more thau the standard 

 of 1 ton an acre, representing a net pro- 

 fit of £8. Dr. Watts, the present Commis- 

 sioner, e.-timates that the benefit to 

 Antigua and St. Kitts alone would more 

 than cover the expense of the Depart- 

 ment- Much light has been thrown on 

 the food requirements of the cane by 

 carefully controlled experiment. As 

 might be expected, potash is found to be 

 favourable, but phosphatic manures to 

 have involved monetary loss. Dr. Watts, 

 who lifts been the pioneer in the promo- 

 tion of central factories, has obtained 

 an increased production of 40 per cent, 

 more thau the 'Muscovado system'. Nor 

 is this all. The pests and diseases by 

 which the sugai-cane, like all other 

 cultivated plants, is attacked had to be 

 combated. The Cambridge School was 

 drawn upon tor mycologists and entomo- 

 logists. Mr. Maxwell-Lefroy achieved a 

 notable success in discovering the means 

 of controlling the destructive moth 

 borer. 



The upshot i9 that a moribund indus- 

 try has been given a new lease of life by 

 bringiug scientific method to bear upon 

 it. Laissez /aire would say that the 

 planters mit,ht have done it for them- 

 selves. But they did not, and, in fact, 

 could not ; a scientific campaign can no 

 more be conducted by amateurs than a 

 military one ; the planters would not 

 have known what positions to attack, 

 nor could they have found the necessary 

 men to do it nor directed them if they 

 had. 



Other industries had to be revived or 

 created. Perhaps the most important 

 ot these the production of Sea Island 

 cotton with the generous help of the 

 United States. 



Lastly, but by no means least, an effi- 

 cient system of rural education has been 

 organized for the negro peasantry. I 

 have no hesitation in saying that ft is 

 far in advance of anything which exists 

 in the county where I am writing. 



And thus Sir Charles Lucas, speaking 

 from the perspective of the Colonial 

 Office, is able to say that 1 while the 

 eighteenth century saw the greatness of 

 tha West Indies, the nineteenth their 

 distress, the twentieth century, he hoped, 

 would witness their regeneration.' 



But this is not the end of the story. 

 What has been accomplished in the 

 West Indies has not been without its 

 effect as an object-lesson elsewhere. It 



is to the credit of the Government of 

 India that it has been, as already re- 

 marked, in advance of its time in pio- 

 neering work. It deprived China ot the 

 monopoly of tea, and with the help of 

 Kew, it has created the rubber industty 

 of the East. But except as regards 

 forestry it has effected little in inten- 

 sive cultivation. 



Canning claimed that he brought the 

 New World to redress the balance of 

 the old. The Department ot Agricul- 

 ture for the West Indies has stimulated 

 a new activity in the Ea*t, whare some 

 of its trained officers have found a larger 

 scope for work. Tbe recently published 

 ' Report of the Board of Scientific Ad- 

 vice for India ' shows an awakeuness and 

 initiative which would have been looked 

 for in vain a dozen years ago. 



SALADS AND SALAD-MAKING. 

 By C. Herman, Senn, g.ca,, a.i.j, 



(Read September 26, 1911.) 

 (From the Journal of the Royal Horti- 

 cultural Society, Vol. XXXVII, 

 Part 2, December, 1911.) 



Salad-making and salad-eating are 

 habits of great antiquity. The Romans 

 knew how to appreciate a good salad, 

 but their methods of salad-dressing 

 would hardly appeal to moder n palates ; 

 for oil, ginger, honey, nitre, and the 

 ubiquitous "garum" (a sauce made of 

 the gills of various pickled fish) were 

 amongst the favourite ingredients. The 

 Rumans were in the habit of eating salad 

 at the beginning of a meal as a kind of 

 hors cVceuvre, under the idea that ib 

 stimulated the appetite, a custom which 

 was followed by our own country 

 during the Middle Ages, and this custom 

 has of late become fashionable again. 



The enormous range of herbs grown 

 in England in Elizabethan days, made 

 salad dishes particularly acceptable to 

 our ancestors. It is true that ordinal y 

 vegetables were but little eaten, owing 

 to ignorance of the proper methods of 

 cultivation ; but, on the other hand, the 

 supply of salad herbs was far more 

 plentiful than nowadays. Gerard, the 

 herbalist, quotes more than thirty as 

 being in general use, viz., Spanish 

 pepper, onion, leek, chives, garlic, 

 turniptops, winter cresses, rocket, 

 tarragon, various cresses, garden suc- 

 cory, dandelion leaves, endive, lettuces 

 (wild and cultivated), beet, spinach, 

 orache or triplex, dock leaves, sorrel, 

 roots of rampion, lessor house-leeks, 

 purslane, sampler leaves, brook-hme or 

 water pimpernel borage, bugloss leaves, 



