Edible Products. 



72 



[Frb. 1907. 



A poisonous property is sometimes acquired by the cultivated juar in India 

 and if eaten by cattle, especially when it is very young or when stunted by drought 

 or parched by growing on exposed dry rocky soils, has frequently poisonous effects. 



That the cultivated varieties possess this property Sir George Watt looks on 

 as evidence of at least the fodder yielding varieties being derived from Andropogon 

 Halepensis whicli is known in certain mountainous countries of India by the verna- 

 cular name B ikhonda, possibly intended to denote its somewhat evil reputation: 



The poisonous properties of Sorghum were at one time supposed to be due to 

 decomposition set up by insects, at another by the effect of fungus. In the Agri- 

 cultural Ledger 1898 No. 2i Calcutta. Veterinary Captain H. T. Pease. A.V.D. F.Z.S. 

 wrote, " Juar is mostly grown on highlands and is occasionally irrigated. It is 

 dependent on the rains for its moisture— a delay of the rain or an unusually high 

 temperature, which withers up and stunts the Juar is necessary for the 

 production of the change in properties which caused it to become poisonous." 

 Veterinary Captain Pease had the opportunity of inspecting animals that had 

 been poisoned. " On inspection of the Juar which had been given to the dead 

 animals, I was very much surprised, on breaking open the stalks, to tind a very 

 considerable quantity of a white salt deposited in crystals in the pith, more especially 

 at the nodes. The salt to the taste was cooling and saline, very like Nitrate of 

 potash. On burning a piece of stalk there was marked crepitation. 



I collected some of the stalks and subjected them to a chemical examination 

 which revealed the fact that the salt was Nitrate of Potash. The quantity of salt in 

 the stems was so considerable (25%) that there was no doubt in my mind that this 

 was the cause of the deaths of the cattle which had fed upon it." 



This conclusion was confirmed by a further analysis of grass which caused the 

 death of a number of cattle at the Sirsa fair. A heifer given 10 ounces of the drug in 

 a ch'ench died in 20 minutes. 



Sir George Watt writes t On the other hand, Dunstan and Henry (Philosophs. 

 Trans of the Royal Society (199 A), 399) in a very learned paper on the Cyano-genesis 

 in plants have shown that the poisonous property of immature Sorghum is due to 

 the presence of prussic acid originating in a new glucoside named dhurrin. But it 

 should be observed that these authors expressly say that the prussic acid has only 

 hitherto been detected in "the young plant." 



Whatever may be the cause of this grass developing poisonous properties it 

 is evident that it should be used with caution as a fodder, though I cannot hear of 

 any authenticated cases of cattle having died after eating it in Ceylon. 



THE OBJECTS AND PLAN OP HEELEAKA EXPERIMENTAL STATION. 

 By H. H. Mann and C. M. Hutchinson. 

 The culture of tea has long been recognised to be one of very special 

 character. In few other agricultural crops is it the leaf which forms the commodity 

 for whose production the crop is grown, and in most of these, the plant which is 

 cultivated is an annual one. In the few exceptional cases, like the mulberry, where 

 a perennial tree is grown for the production of leaf, the methods by means of 

 which this is done bear little or no analogy to those of tea culture. It is no wonder 

 therefore, that the history of the tea industry in India is the history of experience 

 bought by many failures, and one has only to read some of the early records of tea 

 culture in Assam, to recognise how utterly unprovided with correct information 

 the pioneers were. 



* Depaiimeut of Agriculture Madras, Vol. Ill, Bulletin No, 55, 

 t The Agricultural Le Iger Calcutta, 1905— Mo, 6 



