October, 1910;] 



357 



Miscellaneous. 



the air in the tubercles formed on its 

 roots. If the plant is not cut or fed to 

 cattle, etc., and so removed from the 

 land, nothing which it takes from the 

 soil would be lost. The plant should be 

 pulled up and applied as a green manure 

 to the coconut tree in the same way that 

 others are applied. But none of the 

 nitrogen stored up in the living plant is 

 available to the coconuts, but the 

 amount in the fallen leaves and decayed 

 nodules i.° available after some time. 



H. N- D.— Norwood jat dark * leaved 

 Manipuri tea is recommended for the 

 Galle district. 



B. Yl.—" Monster a deliciosa " is known 

 to be grown in Mirigama district by Mr. 

 W. H. Wright. Plants may possibly be 

 had from him or the Director, R.B.G. 



S. A. C— Mango takes, roughly speak- 

 ing, three months from flower to mature 

 fruit ; but no exact time can be fixed for 

 picking the fruit, which must be tested 

 before being plucked. There should be 

 no difficulty in ascertaining whether a 

 fruit is mature enough to be removed 

 from the tree to complete its ripening. 



Betel. — The ground should be well 

 turned over and exposed to the sun 

 in preparing the land, and it is advis- 

 able also to give it a slight dressing of 

 lime : all roots and stubble should be 

 collected and burned, and the cultivation 

 should be as clean as possible and the 

 land well drained. There would be no 

 harm in raising a crop of betel between 

 the rubber, but of course the loss of 

 fertility that is bound to follow must be 

 made good by manure. 



AGRICULTURAL EXPERIMENTS 

 IN MALABAR. 



(Prom the Indian Agriculturist, Vol. 

 XXXIV., No. 2, February, 1909.) 



An interesting and instructive Note 

 drawn up by Mr. W. Francis, i.c.s, 

 President of the Calicut district Agri- 

 cultural Advisory Council, shortly be- 

 fore he lelt the District, has been issued. 

 It deals with the woik done by the 

 Association and gives details of the 

 various experiments which the President 

 is desirous that the Association should 

 undertake during 1909-10. The plan 

 adopted by the Association last year of 

 drawing up a list of experiments which 

 members undertook to conduct, worked 

 well and has been recommended by the 

 Central Agricultural committee for 

 adoption in all the Districts. It enabled 



each Branch Association to see what 

 the others were doing, permitted the 

 Superintendent of the Taliparamba 

 Farm to tour round and give advice and 

 assistance, and will, it is hoped, enable a 

 consolidated report of the different 

 classes of experiment undertaken to be 

 drawn up for the information of the 

 public, to show them that the Associ- 

 ations are doing valuable work. Honor- 

 ary Secretaries have been instructed to 

 collect data for the report, without 

 which much of the benefit of the year's 

 work will be lost. 



Ground-nut Experiments. 



Ground-nut, which two years ago was 

 an unknown crop in Malabar, is now a 

 decided success in Palghat, thanks 

 chiefly to the efforts of Mr. Rama- 

 chaudra Iyer, the Tahsildar. About 500 

 acres were planted there last year, and 

 the experimental stage has been passed. 

 In Ponani, the Tahsildar has arranged 

 for about 75 acres to be planted this 

 year, and the Palghat Association has 

 been asked to advance the money for 

 the seed, which will be sold to the ryots 

 and the outlay recouped. The Tahsil- 

 dars in all the other Taluqs are also 

 being entrusted with the extension of 

 the crop. Though it has now been 

 shown that ground-nut will succeed on 

 any dry land if sown in May or June, 

 Mr. Francis suggests that the experiment 

 should now be thoroughly conducted by 

 growing it as a second crop on single- 

 crop wet lands. Should this prove a 

 success, very important results may 

 follow, as there are thousands of acres 

 in Malabar that lie fallow half the year, 

 except for a scanty crop of gingerly or a 

 lew vegetables. Moreover, it has been 

 proved, in some cases at least, that the 

 raising of ground-nuts actually benefits 

 the next paddy crop. The seed should 

 be sown as soon as the land can be got 

 ready for it, after the paddy has been 

 removed, so that the young plant may 

 get the benefit of the no^th-east mon- 

 soon rains. 



Tapioca. 



Mr. Francis suggests that the culti- 

 vation of tapioca and the very simple 

 process of turning it into flour should be 

 pushed by the Tahsildars this year, but 

 it is also hoped that members of associ- 

 ations will help to spread the knowledge 

 of both matters. 



Sugarcane. 



Sugarcane experiments, with seed- 

 cane supplied from the Taliparamba 

 Farm, have been separately arranged 

 for. The crop has so far been a great 

 success, wherever it has been tried in 

 the District. 



