April i, 1890.] 
Supplement to the "Tropical Jgricnliurist." 
725 
2nd OaO. Lime, calcium oxide, quicklime, 
caustic lime, lime shells, as it comeB from the kiln 
after burning. 
3rd CaH 2 .0 2 . Slaked lime, calcium hydrate, 
fallen shells, after water has been put on it, or it 
has absorbed water from the atmosphere ; still some- 
what caustic, and usually spread on the land in 
this state. 
4th CaC0 3 Mild lime, the state to which it 
eventually returns ou long exposure; has jielded up 
its water and J absorbed carbon dioxide (C0 2 .) On 
this condition it is equivalent to finely powered 
limestone or chalk, as it is identical in chemical 
composition with them. 
Effect of Lime on Soils. 
1. Acts with felspar or cluy, setting free potash 
or other alkalies. 
2. Acts on vegetable matter, setting free ammonia, 
water, nitric acid, and carbon dioxide (which it unites 
with) tendiDg to destroy excess of humus in the soil. 
3. Neutralizes organic acids— humic, ulmic, geic, 
&c, — thus sweetening the soil. 
4. Takes up nitric acid as formed by the nitri- 
fying bacteria. 
5. Is a plant-food in itself. 
6. Renders harmless injurious salts of copper, iron, 
&c. 
7. Opens up clay soil from the "curdling" effect 
it has on the molecules of that substance. 
Soils which contain more than 4 per cent of lime, 
(carbonate) thould not have any applied as a rule. 
Loamy and clay soils oontain 1 to 3 per cent of 
calcium carbonate, and defective soils less than 1 per 
cent. 
ALFHED DlilEllEIiG. 
«. 
ANIMAL PARASITES. 
In these papers I propose to deal with the com- 
moner animal parasites which attack man and beasts, 
and especially those which find a host in our domesti- 
cated animals. Nearly all these come under the class 
Scolecida of the sub-kingdom Annuloida. Some of the 
Scolecida are worm-like but others are not, many being 
microscopic organisms. The animal paiasifces are 
collectively spoken of as Entozoa— organisms which live 
within an animal. Most of the parasitic forms are of 
very low structure, living without any exertion on their 
own part, and simply imbibing the nutritive juices of 
the host through their delicate integument. 
The first and most important of the seven groups 
into which the Scolecida are divided, is Tceniada or 
the Tapeworm family. The body of the adult is 
jointed) the joints being flattened, and the head is fur- 
nished with booklets or suckers, or both. It has no 
mouth or alimentary canal. The suckers and booklet 
of flint arc for attachment to the alimentary canal or 
other regions of the host. The head contains such 
nervous organs as exist — the Ganglia, as they are 
called, which are little masses or knots of nervous 
matter, containing nerve cells, and giving origin to 
nerve-fibres. The head is truly the animal, all the 
jointed tape-like body which follows it being really 
reproduced from the head by budding. The head, 
however, contains no reproductive organs, and the egg g 
are produced solely by the flattened joints, the adult 
animal being hermaphrodite. The egg when introduced 
by some means into the stomach of man or animals 
develops into the pro-scolex, a little embryo which 
bores its way through the muscular tissue till it gets 
to the region where it fixes itself, by means of its flinty 
hooklets. It then developes from its binder end a 
kind of bladder or cyst filled with fluid, and thus con- 
stitutes what was formerly called a "cystic worm" 
under the belief that it was a distinct worm, but is 
now termed the scolex. If now a portion of flesh con- 
taining a scolex be eaten by man or animal, the bladder 
worm fixes itself in the mucous membrane of the 
alimentary canal, throws off its cyst and becomes at 
once the head of the full-grown tape-worm or strohila, 
which grows in length by developing segments or prog- 
lotides. Now again the adult worm produces eggs 
which pass through the various stages of proscolex, 
scolex, and strobila when introduced into the alimentary 
canal of the host. It will thus be seen that two hosts 
are necessary for the development of the Treniada, and 
nearly always these are of different species, some tape- 
worms passing one part of their existence in the dog 
and another in man, others living in man and the pig, 
others again in man and the ox, and still others in 
the dog and sheep, and so on. But 1 shall, as proposed, 
take up the more common of the animal parasites in 
due course, and firstly those which belong to the 
family of tape-worms. C. D. 
(To be continued.) 
♦ 
A SIGNIFICANT EXPERIMENT. 
A villager in a communication to a native paper has 
reported the results of an experiment in paddy culti- 
vation by mcaus of transplanting. The purport of 
this communica'iou is reproduced here since it is valu- 
able as being one independent of official recognition 
and corroborating the results of the experiments of 
Agricultural Instructors in various parts of the Island. 
The iufluence of such experiments as the one I am 
noticing will no doubt tend to stimulate the goiyas to 
adopt the meaus employed, while they are uuable to 
impute, in this case, any interested motives which 
s)me are even ready to conjure up, as governing the 
carrying out, and estimating the cost, of experiments 
in paddy cultivation, and the goiyas will no doubt 
readily admit that what one of their own people 
could do is within their own power. 
