June 2, 1890.] Supplement io the "Tropical Agriculturist." 
GENERAL ITEMS. 
The Kcw Bulletin for January last contains an 
account of the " Weather Plants " {Mrus Precatorius 
Linn.), for which Professor Nowach of Vienna claimed 
the property of foretelling changes of weather and 
earthquake shocks. The plant has been under obser- 
vation at Kew, and an exhaustive report on it is 
furnished by Dr. Oliver. Observations aud experiments 
do not, however, tend to prove that the " weather 
plant : ' is a reliable indicator of climatic changes or 
of earthquakes. 
A unique specimen has been lately added to the 
School Museum collection, viz., a double egg or one 
egg inside the other. The eggs are perfect each with 
its own shell, the two shells being connected at their 
bases. It is difficult to speculate what would have been 
the result if this lusus natures had been hatched ! 
An enquiry made by Sir Joseph Hooker has elicited 
the information that Piuri (Purree) or " Indian 
Yellow" used in painting walls, doors, railings and 
sometimes for dyeing cloth, is made from the urine of 
cows fed with mango leaves. 
The oost of destroying rabbits in New South Wales is 
enormous, the Government having expended nearly 
£1,000,000, and the pastoral lessees about £250,000. A 
new Rabbit Act, makiug destruction of the pest com- 
pulsory, is proposed. Pastoral holdings are to be 
fenced with rabbit-proof wire fencing. Lessees are to 
be aided by Government in enclosing their holdings. 
The Minister of Lands estimates that it would cost 
£3,000,000 to enclose the leasehold areas in the Western 
and Central divisions of the Colony with rabbit-proof 
fencing . 
It seems that of late several cases in wliich damages 
have been claimed for injuries sustained from barbed- 
wire fences have cropped up in different parts o£ 
England, and in thess cases it has been held that such 
wire is not proper fencing to have where the public 
frequent. ■* Barbed-wire," says the North British Ayri- 
culturist, "is not only dangerous in tearing people's 
clothes aud pricking them, so that blood-poisoning sets 
in, but it deteriorates the value of the hides of sheep. 
This is a fact that many tanners are now becoming 
acquainted with. Considering the amount of harm 
that barbed-wire does, compared with the imaginary 
benefits iu the shape of being a deterrent to man, it 
is a wonder that it should be used at all." We com- 
mend these remarks to the Kaudy Municipality or 
whoever is responsible for the putting up of the barbed- 
wire fence along the Kaudy Bund, whore the object it 
is intended to serve is difficult to see. 
The following quotation from the Indian Agriculturist 
of the 25th January will prove interesting to those who 
so keenly discussed the question in the local papers, 
aa to whether silica was neceaaary to produce, atiffuess 
in the leaves and stems of graminaceous plants and 
trees:— "The generally accepted theory that the 
strength of straw is dependent on the amount of silica 
it coniains, is now proved to ba wrong. Dr. Giloert, a 
practical chemist, found from analyses of ten samples of 
wheat and twelve of barley— all of different seasons or 
different manuring — that the proportion of silica is as 
a rule not higher in the straw of the better -grown and 
better-ripened crops. In both the wheat and the barley 
the percentage of silica in the straw is under all con- 
ditions of manuring much the lower in the better 
seasons. With the wheat under such conditions of 
manuriog, and with the barley under most conditions, 
it is considerably lower iu the better seasons. Dr« 
Gilbert concludes that the high percentage of silica 
means a relatively low proportion of organic substance 
produced, and the strength of straw depends on the 
tavourable development of the woody substance, and 
the more this is attained the more will the, 
accumulated silica be, so to speak, diluted. " 
This opinion of Dr. Gilberti the co-worker of Dr. 
Lawes, comes with great force. Prof. King, lecturer 
on Agricultural Chemistry, and analyst to the City of 
Edinburgh, in discussing the question of whether silica 
was au indispensable element of food to some plants 
used to say that the probabilities were it was not in- 
dispensable ; and that the want of silica in a soil was 
not the cause of " lodging," which was caused by the 
want of some other ingredient. Silica, says Wariugtou, 
was long supposed to be an enential constituent of 
wheat, barley, aud other similar plants, and to be the 
ingredient on which the stiffness of their straw chiefly 
depended. It his been shown, however, that maize 
and oats may be successfully grown witnout any supply 
of silica, and with no perceptible difference as <.o 
the stiffness of the stem. The grass growing on peat- 
bogs also contains scarcely any silica, though silica is, 
abundant in ordinary hay. 
The Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England to haud is full of interesting and valuable 
iuiormatiou on a variety of subjects. The journal has 
been hituerto puilished annually, but the present issue, 
the first part of Volume. I. of the third series is to be 
continued quarterly. 
The death is reported of Mr. Herbert Little, so well- 
known to the Agricultural world as a high authority 
on farming in general and cattle in particular. Mri 
Little was Honorary Professor of Agriculture at Ciren- 
cester, and used to deliver a few lectures on general 
agricultural subjects at the college each term. He was 
always known as a most genial and versatile mau, and 
his loss will be not a little felt by those who knew him 
uud the students who used to listen to his lectures. 
Professor Wallace of the Euiuburgh University writes 
of his intention to spend May and June in the American 
States. The Professor's brother, Mr. John Wallace of 
Holmhill, Thoruhill has been appointed lecturer on 
agriculture at HerioUthe Watt Technical College, 
