March 1908.] 



235 



Miscellaneous, 



repair of cane-mills, boiling-pans, and 

 centrifugals is the greatest need of .the 

 industry. 



Wheat. 



Wheat covers an area in British India 

 of some 25 million acres, and has an out- 

 turn of some 7 million tons, and a value 

 of £42 million sterling. 



The varieties cultivated are exceeding- 

 ly numerous and differ greatly in qua lity. 

 Many spasmodic attempts have been 

 made to extend the cultivation of the 

 superior soft varieties but with little 

 success, for they either refuse to grow or 

 deteriorate rapidly. The yield is esti- 

 mated to average 5 cwt. or 9 bushels per 

 acre— an outturn similar to that recorded 

 in England 500 years ago— but with 

 irrigation and manure it rises to 15 cwt. 



In certain tracts where cloudy weather 

 is apt to induce rust, only the inferior 

 varieties which are resistant to this 

 disease can be grown. Hopes are enter- 

 tained that by hybridisation varieties 

 may be obtained which Avill combine this 

 resistant power with a superior quality 

 of grain ; and systematic investigation 

 is being conducted to ascertain by selec- 

 tion the most profitable variety adapted 

 to each soil and climate, 

 Jute. 



Jute has recently come into the front 

 rank of Indian industries. The great 

 increase in the demand for fibres has 

 doubled its price in the last five years, 

 with the result that the area cultivated 

 has risen in that period from two to three 

 million acres, and the crop in 1908 was 

 estimated to be worth £35 million, 

 sterling. 



A hundred years ago it was an un- 

 known commodity to the markets of the 

 world, and was only used as the material 

 for the coarse sackcloth worn by the 

 peasants of Bengal. 



The cultivation is still restricted to the 

 provinces of Bengal and Assam, but 

 efforts are being made to introduce it to 

 other provinces. A survey has just been 

 made of all tracts in India which appear 

 to be suitable to the crop, and skilled 

 cultivators from Bengal were despatch- 

 ed to conduct experiments on the agri- 

 cultural stations. In its original home 

 jute ripens in three to four months with 

 a rainfall of thirty to forty inches and a 

 soil of sandy loam. It may be sown in 

 March, April, or May, and harvested in 

 July and August. Some sixty varieties 

 are kuown to Bengal, and several alter- 

 native roads to success offer themselves 

 for investigation. Areas may be found 

 with climatic conditions similar to those 

 prevailing in Bengal ; irrigation from 

 canals may prove an efficient substitute 

 for rainfall ; or varieties may be dis- 



covered which will adapt themselves to 

 different soil and scantier moisture. The 

 large out-turn and high value of the crop 

 is an incentive to perseverance in these 

 researches, for while cotton on an aver- 

 age will yield less than a cwt. of lint to 

 the acre, worth, say a couple of pounds, 

 jute will produce 10 cwt. of fibre worth 

 about 12 pounds. 



(To be continued.) 



OUR PLANT IMMIGRANTS :* 



AN ACCOUNT OF SOME OF THE RESULTS OF TEH 

 WORK OF THE OFFICE OF SEED AND PLANT IN- 

 TRODUCTION OF THE DEPARTMENT OF 

 AGRICULTURE AND OF SOME OF THE 

 PROBLEMS IN PROCESS OF SOLUTION. 



By David Fairchild, 

 Agricultural Explorer, in Charge of 



Foreign Explorations. 

 The era of pork and hominy has passed 

 for ever in this country, but so short a 

 time ago that our fathers refer to it as 

 the time of plain living. What has 

 wrought this change tnroughout the 

 table menus of the country since the 

 days of the California gold fever ? It is 

 not the gold fields of the Pacific slope, 

 nor the industrial development of the 

 country that has caused it, so much as 

 the introduction of new food plants. 

 The changes that have been going on 

 since those waggon caravans followed 

 each other across the great plains have 

 been gigantic, but in no respect have 

 they been more remarkable than in those 

 which Plant Introduction has brought 

 about. 



Slowly at first, with the establishment 

 of those plants that the immigrants 

 brought over with them, this work has 

 gone on, unchronicled by historians, 

 until to-day the very things that we 

 look upon as characteristic of great 

 regions of the country are vast fields 

 and enormous orchards of introduced 

 plants. 



Some Noted Importations. 



The discovery of gold at Stutter's mill 

 was the beginning of the great industrial 

 development of the Pacific Coast, but 

 the introduction by the Catholic Fathers 

 of a single forage plant— alfalfa— has 

 turned two million acres of land into the 

 most generally profitable farm area of 

 this country. 



The same Fathers brought with them 

 to their missions olive cuttings, whose 

 descendants to-day cover thousands of 



* The substance of an address to the National 

 Geographic Society, February 9, 1906, and 

 published by permission cf the Secretary of 

 Agriculture. 



