G36 JOURNAL OF THE RO^■AL HORTICULTURAL S0CH<1TY. 



A series of extra dry seasons, however, occasioned a complete failure 

 of the water supply, and the orchards were eventually abandoned. 

 After six or seven years of complete neglect, the plantations have 

 been visited, and their inspection has brought to light the fact 

 that the olive trees are in every case the only ones which have been 

 able to withstand the long-continued drought with any success. Some 

 fig trees still show feeble growth from below, but grapes, most of the 

 fig trees, apricots, prunes, and cottonwood trees have long since suc- 

 cumbed. An account has also been published elsewhere of a great 

 olive oil industry in a district in the north of Africa, where the rainfall 

 never exceeds 9*3 inches. This bulletin contains an account of the 

 difference in Structure between leaves taken from one of these aban- 

 doned olive trees and from an orchard at Miles, Gal., where the rainfall 

 is naturally much greater, and where irrigation is also practised. The 

 evidence here presented would seem to indicate that the difference in 

 the conditions under which the plants were grown did have a distinct 

 though comparatively slight effect upon their anatomical structure, but 

 that the normal leaf and stem structure of the olive is such as to protect 

 it admirably against loss of water by transpiration, and thus adapts it 

 to dry soils and climg^tes. Besides this, the root system of the olive 

 shows unusual ability to collect water from soils naturally deficient in 

 moisture, and further, its habit of growth is well calculated to preserve 

 the trunk from the burning heat of the sun. For all these reasons it 

 is believed that with the planting of the African desert-bred variety of 

 olive already referred to, and the adaptation to American conditions of 

 Tunisian methods of planting and culture, large areas of land in the 

 south-western States possessing a suitable soil and climate, but now 

 undeveloped from lack of irrigation water, may be made to produce 

 olive oil.— M. L. H. 



Onion Seed and Sets, Home Production of. By W. E. Beattie 

 {U.S.A. Dep. Agr., Farmers' Bull. 434, March 1911; figs.).— 

 There has been a tendency of late among northern onion growers in 

 America to revert to the original practice of raising their own onion 

 seed, instead of procuring it from large speculative growers. More 

 careful selection is practised in this way, and though all soils and all 

 climates are not suitable to the raising of onion seed, it has been found 

 that carefully grown seed planted in the same general locality in which 

 it was produced will give better results than will seed brought from a 

 distance. This bulletin gives full directions for the raising of onipn 

 seed and onion sets, and describes the various fungus diseases and 

 insect pests to which the onion is . liable, with the best methods of 

 exterminating them. — M. L. H. 



Orang'e Tortrix. By H. J. Quayle (Jour. Eco7i. Entom., iii., 

 pt. 3, pp. 401-403; Oct. 1910). — This little caterpillar (Tortrix citrana, 

 Fernald) feeds on the leaves of oranges, which it rolls or folds, and 

 burrows into the green fruits, appearing to prefer the latter. It attacks 



