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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[June t, 1882. 
the most interesting matter to us is, that amongst 
the fifteen varieties of yellow barks on Neddi- 
wuttum, all, we believe, derived from the portion of 
Ledger's seed purchased by Mr. Money, there is one 
specially robust. Like the similar one in Jamaica, 
which is able to flourish on windy ridges, it was 
regarded as a hybrid. The plants will probably turn 
out to be identical, and we may now look forward 
to the establishing in India and Ceylon of hardy 
varieties of the very best kinds of cinchona. 
AGRICULTURAL NEWS FROM THE NORTH. 
(From Our Own Correspondent.) 
Aberdeen, 23rd March 1882. 
I notice, in an Observer an account of a set of experi- 
ments testing the effect of different manures on coffee, and 
think their value would have been much enhanced 
had they been done in duplicate, as is now the practice 
in manure experiments conducted under the direc ion 
of agricultural associations in this country. It would 
be a good thing also to include in these experiments 
tests for the value of the different methods of storing 
dung. According to high authorities, there is a very 
material difference in the value of dung that has 
been stored in open yard from that kept under 
cover. Speaking of open yards one authority says: 
— " There is no doubt that the very essence of the 
manure is carried off and lost I am certain that 
this loss, from experiments made, is far more than 
we have the L ast conception of. The late Mr. Hope, 
of Fenton Barns, got 4 tons of potatoes more per 
aero from duug made under cover than from that in 
open yard." 
Air. A. Stephen Wilson's paper embodying his dis- 
covery in the life-hietory of potato-disease was read 
at a meeting of the Linnsean Society, and may be 
looked for in whole or part in that .society's Journal. 
The following has reference to another department 
of Mr. Wilson's work, and is of interest to cereal 
growers, as showing the extraordinary reproductive 
power that may be developed in seeds under condi- 
tions favourable to 
" Tillering." 
In the record of the Edinburgh Botanical Society, we 
find the following summary of a paper " On Tillering," by 
A. Stephen Wilson, Esq., North Kinmundy, Aberdeen- 
shire, illustrated by photographs : — 
By the word "tillering," as applied to a cereal grass, is 
meant the producing of more stalks than one from a single 
see'!. The plumule of the embryo grows into the first or 
primary stalk, and all the secondary staiks arise either 
directly from the primary stalk or from secondary stalks' 
thus directly produced. All the secondary stalks are buds 
growing of stalks, and not out of roots. Indeed, it cau- 
not be properly said that the primary stalk itself grows 
from the. roots ; this stalk and the roots grows simultane- 
ously, and have a biological interdependence, but the roots 
no more produce the stalk than a man's legs produce his 
head. 
All the tillers or secondary stalks are thus of the nature 
pf branches, the buds or beginnings of which arise from 
the two or three lowermost nodes of the primary or se- 
condaries. No such buds are thrown out upon the inter- 
nodes. The secondary stalks or tillers, which are really 
branches, throw out roots from their bases aud lower 
nodes, but no stalk whatever arises directly from any root. 
In some plants a stalk may arise directly from a root, 
or a root may arise directly from a stalk, but in the 
grasses no stalk ever arises from off a root. 
But this note is not intended to be an exposition of 
the principle of tillering, but merely an introduction to 
the accompanying photographs of barley and oat plants. 
These p. ants were grown in the garden at North Kin- 
mundy along with some others not quite so prolific, in 
order to test tbe limits of tillering. Previous experiments 
had shown that the main condition necessary to ensure 
tillering is shallow planting. When a seed is put down I 
two or three inches the plumule is drawn out and exhausted 
before reaching the surface, where the tillering arises. 
When a seed is merely covered with earth it goes into 
tillering at once. The first set of seeds was torn up by I 
the sparrows, so that a partoof the tillering seasou was 
lost. The second set was prtected until safe. The best 1 
barley plant produced about 140 stalks, 130 of which showed 
the ear out of the sheath. The second had 121 ears; 
others had fewer, diminishing down to about 50. The oat 
plant submitted stood through the winter and produced 
about 10,000 returns. 
Now, as the tillering process in the barleys was going 
on during the whole season, some of the ears were not 
ripe when the plants had to be pulled. But notwith- 
standing this, there can be no doubt that, in order to reap 
the full advantage of seed corn, it should be sown or de- 
posited as near the surface as possible. This would be 
true of autumn sowing as well as spring sowing, were the 
former not affected by frost ; but a severe winter renders 
deeper seeding advisable for other reasons than those directly 
connected with the development of the seed. 
I had the pleasure on Friday night of listening to 
a lecture delivered by Mr. Wilson to the North of 
Scotland Horticultural Association, in the Christian Instit- 
ute Hall, on the subject of club root in turnip. 
Reviewing the chief peculiarities which are mistaken 
for disease and that interfere with the weight of crop, 
he described furcation as common to a great many 
roots of perfectly healthy plants. Next "finger and 
toe," which is believed to be tbe result of club-root 
and was so understood by the Russian botanist who 
discovered the club root fungus. Mr. Wilson had 
been able to prove that the finger-and-toe-like nodosit- 
ies were quite distinct, from the clubbing caused by 
the inroads of the fungus, and that they existed free 
from any trace of fungus, and were in fact fleshified 
leaf-buds. It was for the gardener, the farmer, or tbe 
agricultural chemist to find out what excited the 
turnip to sport in leaf-buds, and check the tendency, 
since it was a peculiarity they wished to repress. 
As a botanist, he had discharged his share of the work 
by investigating the nature of this objectionable 
feature. He exhibited a great many specimens of 
terriblj ringer and-toed turnips from the lowest down 
" buds" of which he had cultivated a profusion of 
leaves. Another proof of finger-aud-toes being innoc- 
ent of fungus was demonstrated by the specific grav- 
ity of club-root, which sank in water, while healthy 
turnip and finger-and-toe floated. Olub-root proper 
is the result of a fungus wh.ch attacks from the out- 
side and spreads through the root, causing clubbing 
aud reudering the turnip liable to rot under certain 
atmospheric changes. In the discussion which fol- 
lowed the lecture, Mr. J.imieson, chemist [whose 
reports of experiments have frequently appeared in the 
Observer], was aked to inform the meeting of the result 
of his efforts to elicit information by the circulars he 
sent to farmers two years ago with reference to the 
relations between manures and disease m turnips, but 
he had nothing to impart, further - than that the replies 
received were so very contradictory that he could 
form no conclusion from them. 
THE SODA DEPOSITS OF NEVADA. 
In Nevad i, says the Ten itonal Enterprize, of Virginia 
City, crysiallized soda can be dug up as ice is dug 
from a pond, except in the case of soda no one knows 
how far it is to the bottom of the pond. Out near 
R igtown there is an inexhaustible supply of pure soda 
extending down to an unknown depth. On the surface 
of the ground are two or three feet of sand, but below 
this lies the soda, looking like a solid mass of ice. It 
was this soda that gave rise in the early days — when 
the emigrants were crossing the plains — to the stories 
that in places on the plains there was to be found, 
