THE MAGAZINE 
OP 
THE SCHOOL OF AGRICULTURE, 
COLO 
Added as a Supplement monthly to the " TROPICAL AGRICULTURISTS' 
The following pages include the contents of the Magazine of the School of 
Agriculture for September : — 
HOW DOES SCIENCE HELP AGRICTJLTUEE ? 
III. 
By C. Dbieberg, b.a., p.h.a.s. 
Next in importance to Chemistry as an aid to Agri- 
culture is Botany. Through Botany we gain a 
knowledge of the nature and life-history of all our 
cultivated crop, and forest trees. "We learn thereby 
how plaot9 take in their food, the sources whence they 
get this food, the condition in which it is assimilated, 
how the crude materials are brought to the place 
where the manufacturing goes on, and how they are 
elaborated into organic substances, by what means 
these latter are circulated throughout the plant to 
meet its wants, how they go to build up the tissues 
of the plant and cause it to grow, how it reproduces 
its kind, and how the seedling from the parent plant 
springs up and goes through the cycle of vegetable 
life ; in fact the whole process of nutrition, growth, 
maturity, and decay is made clear to us. For if a 
knowledge of the physiology of man i9 necessary for 
the proper nutrition of the body, and for preserving 
it in health, a knowledge of the physiology of the 
plaut is none the less necessary for its proper care, 
for keeping it vigorous, for helping it when it suffers 
from innutrition, for meeting its partiality for con- 
ditions of heat or cold, sunlight or shade, and for soil 
of varying character. By elaborate experiments in 
Germany in watur- culture, plants and trees have been 
fed artificially, and the quantity and quality of plant 
food has thu'i been ascertained. Moreover, through 
Bota uy we pet to know how plants breathe and ihe 
manner in which they are affected by different external 
agencies. Profesaor Darwin traces in a most interesting 
manner the marvellous sensitiveness — almost amount- 
ing to intelligence — which pome of the individuals of 
the vegetable world display, and which has only to be 
ob«ervt.d to command wonder. 
The influence of vegetation on climate is another 
important i.".atter, the influence of forest trees on the 
rainfall of a oouuuy being well known. Since the 
denudation of the forests in France there has been 
an appreciate decrease in the rainfall, and Egypt has 
had its meagre rainfall increased after the planting- 
up of the country. Proper shelter both to man and 
animals means less food, and in cold exposed parts the 
shelter afforded by a wood is a matter of great 
consideration. 
A knowledge of fungi and bacteria is another im- 
portant tribute of Botany. Parasitic fungi are among 
the greatest, if not the greatest, enemies of hipher 
vegetable life, and indirectly of animal life by ihe 
loss which their miichief results in. S >motimes this 
latter effect is directly so, as in the case of ergot 
which causes much loss among cattle farmers in 
Great Britain. Ergoted grain is now acknowledged to 
cause those epidemics of abortion among milch cows 
which periodically visit certain localities. In Hungary 
where the flour of rye, the favourite host of ergot, 
is used for bread, there has bean a less of some 
thousands of souls by the use of ergoted grain. In 
our own island too there rre parasitic fungi which 
suck the life-blood, as it were, of the trees that yield 
us produce ; and though Borne crops may stand the 
trial, there are others that show, to a sad extent, the 
effects of the attack, as the paddy does by its "smutted" 
grain. 
There are still left the bacteria, which play such 
havoc among our c:it*le and domestic animals by 
spreading anthrax, plouro, tuberculosis and other 
deadly diseases (rabies among the number according 
to M, Pasteur). 
In Ceylon we seldom sow grass seed, but where 
this is done systematically it is necessary to find out 
that the seed supplied by the seedsman is pure. It 
was a common practice, till consulting Botanists were 
appointed to Agricultural Societies, to largely adul- 
terate seeds ; sometimes substituting inferior grass 
seeds for a superior kind, and at other times u^ing 
some totally artificial adulterant. It is often im- 
possible to detect the fraud till after a botanical 
examination. 
A knowledge of weeds and the best means of 
eradicating them is important to the cultivator. A 
weed has been well defined as a plant out >i place, 
and where it occurs it robs the useful plant of the 
nutriment intended for it, only in 3 less exoni-abla 
way than th'2 parasitic fungus, for while the weed 
steals the crude materials, the parasitic fungus steals 
tho food when it is prepared and ready for use. 
The interesting subject of fertilization, and the 
advantages of a kuowledge of ths process, havo 
already be«n dealt with byawviteriu this magazine. 
