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factories taking up the manufacture of white sugar in Java 
were specially equipped to make it without refining and 
without the use of animal charcoal. After describing the 
Javanese mode of manufacture, i\Ir. Geerligs says: “All the 
plant for the manufacture of raw sugar may be retained, and 
it is only necessary to add a sulphur oven, the requisite piping 
and a few centrifugals to make white sugar. Then, either 
white sugar or the raw product may be manufactured, ac- 
cording to the conditions obtaining on the market." 
In one of his “Practical Talks to the Farmer,” 'Sir. F. D. 
Coburn, the distinguished secretary of the Kansas depart- 
ment of agriculture, points out the risks in alfalfa seed. He 
tells about seed supposedly costing S7.80 per bushel, which 
when cleaned was found to have cost actually S13.74 per 
bushel. “The Oklahoma station,” he says, “among m.any 
samples, tested one having 60 per cent, pure seed and 40 per 
cent, impurities, while only 65 per cent, of the pure seed was 
germinable.” His concluding advice may be valuable to some 
alfalfa growers in Hawaii. Sir. Coburn, after showing by 
examples the danger of sowing seeds of weeds along with 
alfalfa seed, remarks : “These findings pointedly suggest 
that it is safe to buy seed of only a thoroughly reputable 
dealer or grower whose name and guarantee stand for some- 
thing. Safety lies in securing samples early and testing 
them. The buyer should learn positively that it is alfalfa 
seed, and not something else, and that it will grow. If more 
than 10 per cent, fail to germinate, he makes a mistake to 
buy it, for something is wrong. Choice seed, the only kind 
worth sowing, always commands a good price, and is worth 
it. The agricultural department at Washington, or the State 
experiment stations, will test samples of seed sent and report 
on them without charge.” 
Tropical Life (London) is devoting much attention to in- 
sect and fungus pests that attack rubber plantations. Several 
articles in the July number refer to the subject. One cause 
of the trouble mentioned is the leaving of rotten logs and 
stumps in land that has been cleared of other growths to 
make way for the planting of rubber trees. The same maga- 
zine quotes an address by IMr. Rudolph Anstead, an East 
India government scientific expert, before the Xilgiri 
Planters’ Association, in which the cross-fertilization of 
coffee is recommended to give the bushes resistant quality 
against disease. The speaker referred to what had been 
achieved through the cultivation of hybrids in the protection 
of sugar cane, cotton and other products, in the West Indies 
and elsewhere, from diseases and pests. 
