624 
THE TROPICAL AtSFRTCULTU Rl ST. 
[March r, 1889. 
In theory it seems true that one may shake the 
solar system by stamping upon the earth. Man 
may to a greater degree modify the climate 
and possibly affect the rainfall by his operations 
in agriculture and forestry, yet I fail to find proof 
of such supremacy over the subject as many theor- 
ists claim. 
Let us look at a few sound practical facts with 
a historical backing. Plymouth Colony, Mass., was 
settled on the easterly side of what I take to be the 
largest forest on the globle at the time, and again, 
by the Atlantic Ocean. According to modern theory, 
how it should have rained upon the poorly housed 
heads of our Pilgrim fathers and mothers ! What 
were the facts? The first fast which was recorded 
in Plymouth Colony was held to pray for rain. Let 
us quote again from history, to see what effect this 
vast forest had upon the rainfall in Plymouth Colony. 
I give a list herewith of the droughts the colony 
endured, also a list of the subsequent droughts in 
the same section of the country, as published in the 
early records and subsequent papers. Recorded as 
above, I find the number of successive days without 
rain in the year 1621 to have been 24 ; ia the Summer 
of 1630 there were 41 successive days without rain ; 
in the Summer of 1657, 75 days; in 1692, 80 days; 
in 1674, 45 days; in 1680,81 days; in 1694, 62 days; 
in 1705,40 days; in 1715, 45 days; in 1728, 61 days; 
in 1730, 92 days; in 1741,72 days; in 1749, 108 days; 
in 1755, 42 days; all successive days without rain. 
In the Summer of 1762 we have a remarkable re- 
cord of 123 successive days without, rain ; in fact, 
there was no rain from the first of May to the first 
of September, and many were obliged to send to Eng- 
land to import from that country their supplies of 
hay and grain to sustain life. In the Summer of 
1801 there were 32 successive davs without rain ; in 
1802, 23 days; in 1812, 28 days; in 1856, 24 days; 
in 1875, 26 days, and in the Summer of 1876 we 
have a record of 27 successive days without rain. 
These facts are certainly very suggestive, and are 
perhaps as reliable as the fanciful theories evolved 
in the brains of weather and forestry scientists. — 
John D. Lyman, Exeter, N. H., in American Cultivator. 
[There are good reasons for objecting to the reck- 
less destruction of forest and for planting trees, 
apart from the pseudo-scientific nonsense about the 
cutting down of forest diminishing rainfall. — Ed. T. A.] 
. + 
Australia is building a fence of wire netting 8,000 
miles long to keep jack rabbits out of Queensland. 
— Southern Planter. 
If Sheep-kaising in Queensland, Australia, will justify 
buying the wire and stretching 8,000 miles of fencing 
to keep out the jack rabbits, why will it not pay in 
Virginia, where we only have to deal with the dogs ? 
— Ibid.. [Of course the marmot-like creature called 
"the prairie dog" must be meant. — Ed. T. A.~] 
Take in the tools. Don't leave your hoes in the 
trees and your plough by the side of the road. This 
carelessness with tools is one of the little leaks that 
makes it necessary to mortagage the farm. — Ibid. 
Potato Culture. — The potato will grow on a 
great variety of soils, but will give the best results 
as regards quantity and quality if planted in a rieh s 
warm, sandy soil. The ground should be naturally 
rich, and if a large crop is wanted old stable manure 
should be used at the rate of ten or fifteen tons to 
the acre. The method we practised some twelve or 
fifteen years ago in planting and cultivating the potato 
has always been successful and is quite simple. We 
selected a sandy soil, strongly inclining to clay, naturally 
rich. Old manure was hauled to the lot in winter, at the 
rate of twenty loads to the acre, and spread evenly 
over the surface. Ar soon as the soil could be 
worked we started the plough, turning the soil to 
a dopth of eight inches and pulverizing it aa much 
as possible. The furrows were set up on edge and 
not turned top side down. The surface was made 
fine witb an old fashioned harrow, and the potatoes 
planted m the ihallow drills some three foot apart 
and the tubers eight inches apart in the rows. The 
seed was covered two to three inches deep with fine 
soil. After planting we spread a half inch coat of 
ashes over the rows, raking the surface thoroughly 
with a fine steel rake and mixing the ashes with 
the surface soil. As soon as the plants begin to show 
here and there we spread a coating of rotten 
straw over the rows to the depth of an inch and 
covering the entire row with a stripe of straw about 
eighteen inches wide. We put a single shovel plough 
to work, running once only between the rows and 
throwing the soil as far over the Htraw as possible. 
With a long shovel, some eight inches wide, and 
sunk to a good depth, the soil would be thrown over 
the entire surface, covering and holding the straw 
in place. The coat of straw will keep down the weeds, 
and nothing more need be done until the plants are 
well up. We then run through the rows again with 
the single shovel sunk as deep as possible, and con- 
tinued to cultivate near the plants with a small 
three shovel plough. Care was taken not to disturb 
the straw and rake it out from the potato plants. 
Late in the season only the surface soil was stirred, 
and in a careful manner, so as not to break the 
roots. From long experience we find that the 
potato requires a good deal of sunshine and also a 
good deal of moisture, A cold, wet seasou will not 
suit them, and for the bset results we al ways pre- 
fer a warm and rather dry Summer. To get the 
proper amount of moisture we use the straw mulch. 
It is quite important to get a 6trong, healthy growth 
early in the season. — Farm, Herd and Home. 
Eggs. — The N. Y. World gives the average produc- 
tion and weight of eggs from some of the most im- 
portant varieties of domestic fowls, as follows: — Light 
brahmas lay from 80 to 100 eggs per annum averag- 
ing about seven to the pound; dark brahmas, about 
70 per annum, eight to the pound ; Plymouth rocks, 
100, eight to the pound ; Honduras and black Spanish, 
150 per annum, the eggs of the former runniug eight 
and of the latter seven to the pound ; leghorns, from 
150 to 200 per annum, nine to the pound ; turkeys 
lay from 30 to 60 eggs per annum, weighing about six 
to the pound ; and ducks' eggs vary from five to six 
the pound ; according to the species. — Natal Mercury. 
Scab on Ohange Teees. — In the (Jape Colony 
Agricultural Journal Professor MacOwen writes as 
follows, with reference to scab on orange trees : — 
" Now for this plague there is nothing to be done 
but cleaning down with alkaline and soapy syring- 
ing. A powerful syringe, or rather force pump, with 
a portable reservoir, is used to swish every part of 
the foliage from the inside. After the soap lye has 
been on the tree for 24 hours in dry, or say 36 hours 
in cool damp weather, the syringing is repeated with 
plain water to get rid of both soap and the dead 
scale insects. If the water is as hot as the hand can 
bear, say 95 °— 10o °,it will be all the better. By 
this means, perseveringly kept up, Mr. W. W. Dickson, 
of Ceres Road, starting with a plantation of neg- 
lected trees covered witb scale, soon got them all as 
clean as the palm of my hand, and good growth 
followed straight away. Now as to the wash. For a 
first application, supposing scale to be badly develop- 
ed take 41b soft soap and a full quart of paraffin 
oil rub into the soap, little by little, a gallon of 
hot water, and when emulsionized into a uniform oily 
mass, add the oil the same way. Dilute this down 
for use with 9 gallons of warm water, and keep 
thoroughly mixed while using with the force pump. 
Mr. Dickson used the soapy liquor of the wool- wash, 
and thus utilised an otherwise useless lye-product, 
For a subsequent application, the lye may be some- 
what weaker. A good force pump mounted on a 
barrel to hold lye, or the subsequent wash-water, 
may cost £3 or £4, and is worth every penny of the 
money. The delivery hose should be mounted on a 
tube 3 £ or 4 ft. long, and the labourer, dressed in a 
sack with holes for head and armes, gets up inside 
the Bpread of the tree, if it be large, and with the 
pump going swishes the back of the leaves, i- e., 
take the enemy in the rear. It is next to useless 
to spray the tree from the outside. — Natal Merenry. 
