Scientific Agriculture. 



534 



[December,, 1911. 



Mr. S Wilcox concludes his report by a 

 general appeal to planters " to determine 

 the exact economy of the method by 

 applying it on a large scale as soon as 

 rubber trees become mature." 



It is sincerely to be hoped that 

 planters will realize how much depends, 

 even scientifically, on their own efforts, 

 and as Mr. Anstead rather pathetically 

 remarks, not leave all the lecturing, &c, 

 to be done by the scientific adviser. It 

 is to be feared that in many Planters' 

 Associations too much attention is paid 

 to matters of perhaps lesser importance 

 to the detriment of the most important 

 question of all, viz., practical and 

 scientific planting. 



We have issued two pamphlets on this 

 and other matteis referring to the 

 manuring of rubber trees, and shall be 

 pleased to forward copies free to any of 

 our readers desiring them. A postcard 

 addressed to our City Office, 112, Fen- 

 church Street, London, E.O., giving the 

 full names and address to which the 

 pamphleos are to be sent, will receive 

 immediate attention. 



BUSINESSMEN'S LECTURE COURSE. 



Interest being Manifested by those 

 of every Nationality— What 

 Scientists will Present. 



(Prom the Manila Bulletin, 

 September 12, 1911.) 

 As the date of the first lecture of the 

 Bureau of Science series approaches, 

 considerable interest is being manifested 

 by businessmen of every nationality 

 in this plan by which Dr. Paul C. Freer, 

 Director of the Bureau, working with 

 the Manila Merchants' Association is 

 seeking to give to the men engaged in 

 industry here some idea of what the 

 scientist can do to aid the businessman. 



Now that the Allied Chambers of 

 commerce commitees has completed the 

 arrangements for the lectures and the 

 members of the committee are working 

 to insure a large audience at the Em- 

 pire theatre, September 19, this depart- 

 ment of the Government is more in the 

 public eye than ever before, and many 

 questions as to the probable scope of 

 ihe lectures have been asked. 



To start the course, Dr. Freer will tell 

 of the work of the bureau which he 

 directs and its worth to the business- 

 mar. It is only in the last two decades 

 that the scientist has begun to come 

 into his own, according to recent writers, 

 who comment upon the extension of 

 science and scientific method even down 

 to the shovel of the labourer and the 



trowel of the bricklayer. To-day scarcely 

 a business exists which is not based 

 upon science, or deals with materials in 

 whose manufacture science has played 

 a most important part. 



The Philippines Bureau of Science 

 has opened up a new field, in that it has 

 had to deal with products of the tropics 

 that had never been investigated by 

 the scientist before in many cases and 

 where preliminary work had been done 

 in other countries, it was often found 

 that erroneous conceptions had arisen 

 which the Philippine scientist had to 

 correct. One of these latter cases was 

 that in which the greatest authority on 

 vegetable oils stated that coconut oil 

 was extremely liable to rancidity, and 

 that it was impossible to keep it with- 

 out changes in its composition taking 

 place. This statement was tested by 

 one of the experts of the bureau who 

 found that coconut oil made from fresh, 

 pure copra remained practically un- 

 changed for two years, and that the 

 proneness to rancidity which the foreign 

 scientist had endowed it with was due 

 to impurities in the copra and not the 

 fault of the oil which never had been 

 pure. 



Many other similar cases where the 

 Philippine investigator has set the 

 chemists of other countries right can be 

 found in chemical literature. The practi- 

 cal importance of such work as that 

 above quoted can hardly be estimated, 

 experts say, since it has pointed out 

 the way to avoid enormous losses that 

 can be prevented. 



Following the lecture of Dr. Freer 

 will come one on Philippine Alcohols by 

 Dr. H. D. Gibbs, who has recently pub- 

 lished an exhaustive summary of work 

 he has been doing with plant j uices which 

 supply material for Philippine dis- 

 tilleries. In the course of these investi- 

 gations, Dr. Gibbs found that the 

 Philippine islands naturally possessed 

 the cheapest source of alcohol in the 

 world, but that the same nipa palm 

 produces a saccharine fluid which needs 

 only to be concentrated and crystallized 

 to be sugar of commerce, equal in taste 

 and grade to the best product of the 

 cane and best sugar factories. As the 

 crushing of the canes and extraction of 

 the juice requires the most costly part 

 of the sugar mill's equipment, this great 

 expenditure is done away with by 

 nature in the nipa palm's case where the 

 juice trickles from the cut end of the 

 llower stalk and needs merely be 

 collected and evaporated to become 

 marketable sugar, 



