Miscellaneous. 



Furthermore, the Department and the Experiment stations are " gathering 

 the materials which will constitute the future of education in agriculture, and 

 the permanent impression which their work will make on agricultural practice 

 will be largely determined by their success in incorporating the results which 

 they obtain in courses of instruction to be given the youth in agricultural 

 colleges and schools." These are, after all, the most important considerations, 

 for they are the most abiding and will have the greatest permanent influence 

 in elevating and improving American agriculture in the broadest sense. 



Secretary Wilson declares his purpose to render all the assistance to the 

 stations which the Department can give them, but he recognizes that something 

 more is required for further development along their own particular lines of 

 endeavour. He accordingly indorses their appeal to Congress for increased appro- 

 priation in the following language: "In the increasing demand for more light 

 on agricultural practices and the growing interest in rural life generally, the 

 stations must have the means for meeting these demands. It is hoped that 

 Congress will recognize this need, as it is already being recognized by some of 

 the States themselves. There is no direction in which public moneys can be 

 appropriated that will bring more certain and lasting returns than in helping 

 the State Experiment Stations to do more research work."—?/. S. Department of 

 Agriculture, Experiment Station Record, December, 1905, Vol. XVII., No. 4. 



Correspondenc . 



CALATHEA ALLOUYA OR "TOPEE TAMPO." 



" Sir,— In your December number of the Tropical Agriculturist Mr. Macmillan 

 is good enough to give us the results of his experience in treatment of the West 

 Indian "Topee Tampo" or Calathea allouya. As the person who is responsible 

 for the distribution to Ceylon and elsewhere of this plant, I may perhaps be allowed 

 to point out that for some reason or other it does not appear to possess the same 

 qualities after cultivation in Ceylon that it shows in its native wilds. It may be that 

 the efforts of the Ceylon "Boy" cook have had something to do with the matter. 

 Instead of boiling for two or three hours— 30 to 45 minutes suffices in the West Indies, 

 and the water in which they are boiled is well salted. With us so treated the tubers 

 in reality possess the " agreeably nutty flavour " previously described, but if they 

 have been boiled for two hours or more as described in the article, it is not at all 

 surprising that they should want the qualities which recommend them in the 

 western world. Of course "what's one man's meat, is another man's poison" has 

 its force all over the world. And I cannot believe that Ceylon is the exception, and 

 they may not in any case suit Ceylon taste. The fact remains, however, that in 

 Trinidad markets the vegetable finds a place, is readily sold in bundles in a cooked 

 state, and is as readily eaten by the peasantry, to whom it has come down as a legacy 

 from the former Carib inhabitants. 



The vegetable is one which should be eaten by itself rather than in conjunc- 

 tion with other food, and not with meat as a substitute for potatoes but as a nutty 

 relish at any time of the day, as one would eat a filbert ; and even the wine which so 

 often accompanies the table nuts may be used with it to considerable advantage in 

 the opinion of non abstainers. 



That it does not merit consignment to the limbo of the forgotten is proved 

 with us by its widespread cultivation and its sale in our markets, 



