and Magazine of, the Ceylon Agricultural Society.— November, 1911. 485 



(2) He further supposes that variations in 

 concentration of the soil solution have no effect 

 on the rate of growth ot plants and that in con- 

 sequence all soils are equally rich in plant food ; 

 added fertilisers owe their value to other than 

 nutritive effects. 



(3) He considers that infertility must there- 

 fore be due to other causes than lack of nutritive 

 compounds ; dismissing considerations of nutri- 

 tion altogether, he supposes instead that infer- 

 tility arises from the presence of toxic organic 

 compounds, some of which at any rate may be 

 plant excretions. We, on the otherhand, attach 

 great importance to the nutritive functions of 

 soil constituents and of added fertilisers; while 

 some of us agree that part of the infertility of 

 "sour'' soils may be due to toxic substances 

 (and apparently the soils examined by Whitney 

 and his colleagues were " sour" soils), we can- 

 not accept the view that J plants excrete toxic 

 substances. 



There is no duubt that the work of the Soil 

 Bureau has suffered from leaving out of consider- 

 ation all biological changes going on in the soil. 

 The decomposition by micro-organisms of the 

 residues of previous generations of plants gives 

 ris6 beyond doubt to quantities of plant food, yet 

 the function of this nutrient material is never 

 considered ; instead, attention is concentrated 

 on possible toxic substances to the exclusion of 

 useful substances. Thus the field of view is un- 

 duly restricted. 



The investigations have, however, served a 

 very useful purpose in stimulating inquiry and 

 they have brought home the fact that the rela- 

 tionships between soils and plants are complex, 

 it is no longer possible to take the old narrow 

 view that the soil simply supplies food to the 

 plant : the earlier papers compelled recognition 

 of the fact that the size of the soil particles 

 which regulate the water and air supply is more 

 important than their chemical composition, and 

 consequently that mechanical analysis is more 

 useful than chemical analysis in characterising 

 soils ; the later papers direct attention to possi- 

 ble toxins of which we may have some in our 

 own ' ' sour " soils. We can find much to criticise 

 in the details of the experiments and still more 

 in the conclusions drawn from them ; not infre- 

 quently the facts themselves are in dispute. 

 Above all we should like to see a re-examination 

 of the fundamental positions based on definite 

 crucial experiments and consideration of alter- 

 native hypotheses. But, whether further work 

 support their hypotheses or noi, Whitney, Cam- 

 eron, Schreiner and their colleagues have made 

 agricultural chemists re-examine their ideas on 

 the soil, and such a reconsideration must in the 

 end advance the subjoct, however troublesome 

 or superfluous it may at the time appear. 



IS THE BANANA SEEDLESS. 



1 read the article under " Acclimatisation, 1 ' 

 by Frederick Boyle, in the Field of Aug. 19th, 

 1911, in which he says:— "All wild varieties of 

 plantain or banana have a great stone with a 

 kernel. , . . But in the cultivated form there 

 is no stone ; only a few black specks remain for 

 a testimony. The seed has vanished." When 

 tea planting in Assam I frequently came across 



the wild plantain in the jungle when shooting. 

 These bore small bunches — five or six to a bunch 

 — of small red fruit, but I never noticed either 

 stone or seed in them. On the other hand, there 

 was a large variety, about 8 in. long by quite 

 3 in. in diameter, much esteemed and cultivated 

 by the natives, whi ch were full of seeds about 

 the size of a pea, but rough in shape, more 

 like a mangei seed, and for this reason not used 

 by the Europeans, though of good flavour, but 

 rather slimy in texture. — Assam. [There are at 

 least twenty species of Musa, and they are all 

 supposed to be natives of the Old World tropics. 

 One of these, viz., M. sapientum, is represented 

 in all tropical countries by cultivated varieties, 

 all of which, so far as is known, are seedless. 

 These varieties bear the same relationship to 

 the type as the cultivated varieties of apples 

 bear to the wild crab (Pyrus malus). The wild 

 form or type of M. sdpientum is said to produce 

 seeds, but we have never seen one. Should 

 any of our readers have an edible fruited banana 

 which produces seeds we would like to receive 

 a sample of the fruit. The Chinese banana (M. 

 cavendishii), known as the Canary banana, is not 

 known to produce seeds. — Ed.]— Field. Sept. 23. 



I notice in last week's Field under the above 

 heading that seeds are rarely met with in banana 

 fruits. When I was staying in Ceylon, at Ban- 

 darawela, in 1906, I found three seeds, in diffe- 

 rent bananas ; they were oval, black and not so 

 large as a sweet pea seed. The banana were 

 the small yellow kind, and much nicer to eat 

 than the large ones. I planted the seeds which 

 I returned home, but unfortunately they did 

 not grow. — T. W. Russell,— Ibid., Sept. 30. 



TEA AND COPRA TRADE OF ODESSA. 



Mr Consul-General C S Smith, reporting on 

 Odessa for 1910, says :— The quantities of Colo- 

 nial products imported were about the same as 

 in 1909. Prices were in general steady, except 

 for coffee, of which the price rose considerably 

 on account of the failure of the Brazilian harvest. 

 Coffee came mostly from Hamburg. The finer 

 kinds are little drunk- The cheaper kinds are 

 most asked for ; they are also replaced by cheap 

 substitutes. Tea comes by sea from Calcutta and 

 Colombo houses. It mostly goes in bond to 

 Moscow. 



Of the copra imported it is probable that 

 about 25,000 tons were sold in Odessa. The copra 

 trade used formerly to be in the hands of a few 

 large import firms with houses in Singapore and 

 London which were represented at Odessa by 

 agents of high standing. The business has now 

 passed into the hands of produce brokers in 

 London. The oil crushers in Odessa agreed 

 amongst themselves at the beginning of 1910 

 only to sign contracts containing the following 

 clause : — ' Shipment by first steamer in (term of 

 shipment) under through bill of lading direct or 

 indirect for Odessa, but should the steamer be 

 lost homewards before reaching Singapore, or 

 arrive there later, in such event the copra to be 

 shipped by first steamer available, provided the 

 copra-is shipped not later than 15 days after 

 term of contract, in the latter case an allow- 

 ance of 2s. 6d. per ton to be paid to buyers," 

 —Financier, Oct. 5. 



