190 



The Supplement to the Tropical A griculturist 



of iron, but the red soils from the old or neve 

 red sandstone formations which have come 

 under our review, contain rather less than 

 analyses which must have cost him endless 

 labour — and recommendations of manure mix- 

 tures based on those analyses. We will not 

 labour the point, we will only repeat that in 

 whatever instance the plant itself has been asked 

 by systematic experiment what kind of food 

 it wants, what elements of nutrition it will 

 be grateful for, the answer has borne no re- 

 lation to the comparative richness or otherwise 

 of its ash in those elements ; hence we conclude 

 that an analysis of the plant can afford no 

 guide to its appropriate manuring, and that 

 Griffiths ; toils are essentially useless for the 

 purpose to which he devotes them. 

 Now let us turn to 



THE IRON QUESTION ; 



it has always been recognised that the rich, red 

 sands and loams of Hereford and neighbour- 

 ing counties give rise to highly-coloured fruit 

 and brilliant flowers ; Tea lloses, in particu- 

 lar, have been thought to take on a special 

 richness of colour. As these red soils owe 

 their colour to oxides of iron, and as iron 

 is known to be essential to the formation 

 of chlorophyll and the red material in ani- 

 mal blood, it seemed a natural step to con- 

 usual. The conspicuous colour may be due 

 either to a slight difference in the mode of 

 combination of the iron, or to its prominence 

 when spread over a somewhat coarse-grained 

 soil, which exposes a comparatively small surface. 



Furthermore, we are acquainted with one or 

 two soils derived from the marlstone, which 

 contain altogether exceptional amounts of iron, 

 at least ten times as much as usual ; yet these 

 soils give rise to no exceptional colour in fruit 

 or flowers. .Lastly, there is but little experi- 

 mental evidence in support of the connection 

 between iron and colour, in the majority of 

 cases at any rate ; we have in our mind a 

 series of experiments upon dwarf Apple trees 

 in large tubs, where, year after year, the Apples 

 supplied with sulphate of iron were the greenest 

 of the series. There is on record also a series 

 of experiments made by Mr. H. H. Cousins 

 at Wye College for the National Carnation 

 Society, in which the use of sulphate of iron 

 made no difference to the colour of yellow- 

 ground fancies. There was some evidence that 

 a scarlet self did not show white flecks so 

 readily in sunshine when they had received 

 iron, but the experiments were not pushed far 

 enough to exclude a possible secondary cause. 

 The action of soluble iron salts upon garden 

 plants is , worthy of further investigation, but 

 the evidence, as far as it goes, is all adverse 

 to the supposition that high colour is neces- 

 sarily or habitually correlated with an abundance 

 of iron in the soil. 



We have dwelt at some length on these two 

 matters, namely, the relation supposed to exist 

 between the ash and the manure appropriate 

 to a particular plant, and the supposed con- 

 nection of iron with the colour of fruit, for 

 we regard the one as a fallacy, and the other as 

 an unproven hypothesis. — Gardeners' Chronicle, 

 June 13. 



THE PRODUCTION OF RAW SILK 

 m BENGAL 



has been seriously affected by a disease known 

 as pebrine, which kills off the worm. The Silk 

 Committee has done much to stamp out this 

 disease, and good seed is now freely provided 

 from its nurseries. Meanwhile, however, many 

 poor cultivators are said to have been ruined, 

 and it will take a considerable time to rehabili 

 tate the industry. The Maharajah of Cossim- 

 bazar, says the Pioneer, is interesting himself 

 in the matter, and he proposes to start a central 

 nursery, with branches, and to lay out mulberry 

 plantations on a large scale at a cost of Rl lakh. 

 If the deteriorations of seed- cocoons can be 

 thorouglv checked, it is likely that sericultuic in 

 certain districts of Bengal will once more reviv . 



CAMPHOR FROM WUCHOW, CHINA. 



H.M. Consul at Wuchow (Mr. H F King) 

 reports that the export of camphor from there 

 to Hongkong in 1907 amounted to 506 cwt. 

 as compared with 879 cwt. in 1906. Of this 

 413 cwt. came down under transit pass from 

 Liuchou (38 cwt.), Ch'ing Yuan (49 cwt.) 

 Nauning (124 cwt.), Hsunchou (2 cwt.), Pose 

 (190 cwt.) and Lungchou (10 cwt.) Mr. King 

 remarks that the manufacture is in its infancy, 

 and that until the camphor can be turned out 

 as white and clean as the Formosan pro- 

 duct there will not be much demand for it in 

 Hongkong. — Board of Trade Journal, June 25. 



TOBACCO AND CLOVES NEAR 

 ZANZIBAR. 



The first Minister, who made an exhaustive 

 safari in the Mkokotoni district last week, 

 reports very favourably on the state of the hus- 

 bandry of the peasant population. The large 

 profits which accrue to the cultivation of tobacco, 

 has induced the inhabitants in one or two 

 centres to plant this commodity to the exclusion 

 of food stuffs, to such an extent as to call for 

 Government interference. It was computed by 

 the natives themselves that the returns on a 

 plot of ground planted with tobacco was 800% 

 than on the same ground planted with mahogo. 

 With such an attractive prospect, the ordinary 

 crops have been entirely neglected and the 

 people now find that with the old supply ex- 

 hausted they are unable to procure the ordinary 

 means of sustenance. The Collectorate new 

 insist that a certain area shall be planted with 

 mahogo or other food producing plants. 



General Raikes is only able to corroborate the 

 previous reports with reference to the serious 

 effect produced on the clove plantations by the 

 drought of the last year. It seems no exaggera- 

 tion to number the dead trees by hundreds or 

 even thon sands. A curious feature however, 

 and one which may be useful to remember for 

 those interested in the cultivation of the clove, 

 is that the dead trees are almost without excep- 

 tion on the edge of swamps, while the trees on 

 the higher ground are quite healthy. It would 

 seem from this that clove trees cannot flourish 

 in the heavy clay soil, when it is baked hard as 

 has been the case during the drought. — Zanzibar 

 Gasette, June 24. 



