432 



[Nov. 1906. 



Current Literature. 



Vegetable Growing in Porto Rico.— By H. C. Henricksen of the Porto Rico 

 Agricultural Experiment Station, issued by the Government Printing Office, 

 Washington, U.S. A:— This is a useful little treatise on the growing of good 

 vegetables in the tropics ; and as the conditions of Porto Rico are not very unlike 

 those of Ceylon, the information contained in the pamphlet and the methods 

 adopted to produce a good class of vegetable may be of use to Ceylon growers. The 

 first chapters deal with the general cultivation of soils, manures and fertilizers, and 

 the sowing of seeds. Diseases of plants aud insect enemies, and how to combat 

 them with fungicides and arsenical insecticides, with illustrations of bucket and 

 knapsack sprayers, are given. The rest of the work is taken up with detailed 

 cultural directions for no less than thirty-nine different vegetables, and is illustrated 

 with a number of well-produced photographic plates.— I. E. 



The Varieties of Cultivated Pepper. — By C. A. Barber, m.a., Government 

 Botanist, Madras ; bulletin No. 56 of the Department of Agriculture, Madras. The 

 pepper industry is of considerable importance in certain districts of Southern India, 

 and this is an attempt to classify the different varieties of peppers cultivated. A 

 number are described, and as a rule the names seem to be quite local. The infer- 

 tility of certain cultivated pepper vines is remarked upon, and this has been looked 

 into as it was thought there might be some purely botanical explanation. It is 

 well known that pepper blossoms may be hermaphrodite or unisexual, and in this 

 connection it is interesting to note that "One of the main results of the recent 

 visit has been to shew that, even in the cultivated vines, while the ovaries are nearly 

 universally present, stamens are by no means always to be found. Further, the 

 fertility of a vine depends directly on the constancy with which the stamens are 

 present. Any large absence of stamens will show itself in spikes with berries few 

 and far between, fertilisation depending, as in the wild forms, on the chance 

 presence of a neighbouring staminate vine flushing at the same time. 



" Observations as to the means by which the pollen of the stamens is trans- 

 ferred from the pollen sacs of one spike to the stigmas of another are at present 

 wanting. But from a general consideration of the fact that flushing takes place 

 during the heavy driving rains of the monsoon, it is suggested that wind and 

 rain are necessary, and that the splashing and falling of the drops dash the 

 pollen over the whole plant. A moderate computation would put the number 

 of flowers in a spike at between 75 and 100. This is the number of stigmas then 

 In a fully hermaphrodite spike the number of pollen grains would be anything up 

 to 30,000 or 40,000, and as one pollen grain is sufficient to fertilise one ovary, it 

 would seem that an ample reserve is available for accidental dispersal- 



" If this suggestion is correct, the effect of rain would be, first of all, to 

 wet the dried up ground, aud thus provide the material for the flushing of young 

 leaves. Each new leaf is followed by a spike in the pepper at flowering time, the 

 spike arising at the same joint as the leaf but on the opposite side. In the course 

 of a few weeks the spike is seen to have elongated and to be covered with the 

 little white star-like stigmas. These are very delicate aud in the continued 

 showers become covered with the wandering pollen from more advanced spikes. 

 A further lengthening will then show the stigmas faded and the small pollen 

 sacs peeping out on each side of the ovaries, ready to burst and scatter their 

 pollen to other, later flowers. It would be interesting to observe if the spikes in 

 the upper part of the vine mature first, for that would certainly aid in the 

 fertilising of the flowers. It must be remembered however that, in the driving 

 rain, pollen can be carried from one plant to another, this being regularly done 

 in the wild vines of the forest, sometimes for considerable distances. 



