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THE  TROHCAL  AGRICULTURIST, 
(July  i,  1892. 
marched  from  Tunis  to  Tangier  under  the  shade 
trees  and  among  thickly-peopled  villages,  where 
nowadays  there  is  nothing  but  desert  and  jackals. 
The  United  States  is  the  latest  country  to  get 
alarmed  over  the  mischief  caused  by  the  clearing 
of  great  tracts  without  any  kind  of  intelligent 
supervision.  Rivers — the  Schuylkill,  for  example — 
are  getting  too  feeble  to  carry  off  the  ever-increasing 
impurities  which  pour  into  them,  and  the  water-supply 
of  whole  districts  is  in  such  danger  that  tree 
cultivation  is  now  a serious  subject  for  the  new  world. 
— Daily  Chronicle. 
— -.v 
AGRICULTURAL  NOTES. 
The  ill  wind  that  has  seriously  wrecked  the  trade 
in  nitrate  of  soda  has  much  cheapened  this  fertiliser 
in  a dry,  harsh  season,  when  the  farmer  badly  wants 
the  article  to  top-dress  his  laud.  The  market  has 
been  quite  in  a panic  state  for  the  last  three  months, 
and  in  Lille,  Dunkirk,  and  other  French  ports  the 
losses  of  merchants  have  been  frightful,  and  the  prin- 
cipal of  a great  firm,  M.  Morel,  has  lately  committed 
suicide.  Large  accumulations  of  stocks  and  lowness 
of  freights  are  regarded  as  the  causes  of  ruinous  de- 
preciation— nearly  40s.  a ton. 
Sunflower  bread  seems  one  of  the  food  varieties  of 
Russia.  The  seeds  yield  much  oil,  the  leaves  are  used  for 
fodder,  the  stalks  for  fuel.  An  experiment  made  in  re- 
cent years  in  Norfolk  gaveagood  return  to  the  farmer, 
but  was  not  repeated.  The  crop  was  insured  luckily, 
for  English  weather  partly  ruined  it  in  a thunder-storm. 
Austria-Hungary,  Switzerland,  andthe  Mid-Rhine  dis- 
tricts send  lamentations  that  the  “splendid  blossoms” 
that  were  out  on  the  fruit  trees,  have  been  severely 
blighted  by  such  frosts  and  snowfall  at  the  end  of  April 
as  had  not  been  known  in  the  present  generation. 
A hot  and  dry  summer  is  expected  by  some  na- 
turalists, who  have  observed  many  lady-birds  in  Kent, 
where  these  “ birds  ” clear  the  hops  of  insect  pests. 
What  are  those  farmers  about  who  are  suffering  a 
loss  of  over  a million  pounds  a year  through  buying 
adulterated  and  inefficient  chemical  manures  ? They 
can  get  value  for  their  money  if  they  will  go  to  firms 
of  established  reputation.  Legislation  for  infants  is 
becoming  quite  an  election  cry. — Daily  Graphic. 
NOTES  ON  POPULAR  SCIENCE. 
By  Dr.  J.  E.  Taylor,  f.l.s.,  f.g.s.,  &c., 
Editor  of  “Science  Gossip.” 
We  Britishers  shall  have  to  look  after  our  cotton 
trade.  Hitherto  we  have  practically  had  the  monopoly 
of  it.  Then  America  stepped  in  as  a competitor — 
afterwards  Germany.  The  latter  country,  we  are  told, 
has  increased  its  cotton-spinning  industry  within  the 
last  decade  by  ten  per  cent.  The  Japanese  do  not 
intend  to  depend  on  England  or  any  other  part  of  the 
world  for  their  woollen  fabrics.  There  has  already 
been  started  in  that  lively  country  a woollen  mill, 
and  the  company  owning  it  is  a purely  Japanese  one. 
Every  member  is  a native,  and  they  are  so  alive  to 
the  situation  that  they  have  sent  representatives  to 
our  English  woollen  manufacturing  centres,  such  as 
Bradford  and  Huddersfield,  to  pick  up  the  necessary  tips. 
A good  deal  has  been  said  and  argued  about  by 
botanists  concerning  the  origin  and  reasons  for  the 
existence  of  poisons  in  plants.  Formerly,  the  devil 
and  the  *'  fall  of  man  ” (or  rather  of  woman)  was  deemed 
a quite  sufficient  explanation.  People  thought  they 
put  all  sorts  of  plants  in  a respectable  position  when 
they  condescended  to  eat  them,  raw  or  cooked. 
What  the  plants  thought,  I cannot  say — although  I 
have  always  been  sorry  for  the  poor  plants.  To  live 
for  the  sake  of  being  eaten  cannot  be  cheerful,  even 
for  a low-minded  cabbage  or  potato.  The  fact  is,  the 
so-called  poisonous  secretions,  (perhaps  excretions)  in 
plants,  which  animals  do  not  like,  are  all  more  or  less 
protective.  But  animals  must  live,  and  if  vegetarian 
creatures  cannot  get  exactly  what  they  want,  they 
must  take  what  they  can  get.  So,  the  poisonous  plants 
have  gone  on  secreting  all  torss  of  poison  in  leaves, 
stems,  and  roots,  and  the  slugs,  Ac.,  have  acquired 
(like  opium-eaters)  the  power  of  not  only  eating  the 
poisoned  leaves,  but  of  enjoying  them.  * Of  course, 
millions  of  their  kind  have  died  off  in  the  process  of 
this  evolution.  The  game  is  a well-understood  one. 
It  is  simply  that  between  the  most  penetrating  naval 
guns  and  the  least  penetrative  armour-clad  ships. 
I refer  to  this  most  interesting  matter  now,  because 
I see,  in  a very  recent  number  of  a scientific  journal, 
a query  concerning  the  “uses  ' of  poisons  in  plants. 
It  is  useless  to  go  to  the  devil  for  an  explanation, 
as  our  devout  forefathers  generally  did.  If  poisonous 
plants  have  not  won  in  the  long-continued  game  of 
vegetable  “Nap”  they  must  pay  up.  The  so-called 
“animal  and  vegetable  kingdoms”  have  been  playing 
“Nap”  for  a hundred  millions  of  years  at  least. 
Plants  do  not  want  to  be  eaten  any  more  than 
Christians,  except  under  special  circumstances,  and 
then  they  are  honest  enough  to  advertise  the  fact  in 
some  way  or  another.  Plants  like  to  live  and  enjoy 
themselves  (in  a quiet  vegetable  way)  like  some  of 
us  old  fogies  do.  So  you  cannot  blame  them  if  they 
do  their  level  best  to  secrete  poisons  in  their  leaves, 
roots,  seeds,  or  fruits ; if  so  be  this  secretion  protects 
them  and  their  kind. 
Yet  in  spite  of  their  poison  some  plants  are  eaten. 
A few  species  of  slugs  feed  upon  the  foxglove,  which 
yields  digitaline  (a  decided  poisonl  and  although  the 
laburnum  tree  is  undoubtedly  poisonous,  rabbits  will 
gnaw  it.  You  Australian  people  know  by  this  time 
that  they  will  gnaw  anything,  except  a county-court 
summons.  The  oleander  is  one  of  the  most  poisonous 
plants  in  the  world,  as  every  student  and  lover  of  the 
delightful  Anabasis  of  Xenophon  is  well  aware,  yet  the 
caterpillar  of  the  oleander  hawk  moth  has  defeated  the 
“sagacity”  of  the  poisonous  plant.  One  of  our  most 
powerfully  poisonous  native  English  plautsisthe  deadly 
nightshade.  It  has  such  a botanical  tradition  of  terrors, 
a veritable  and  vegetable  Madame  Tussaud’s  “ Chamber 
of  Horrors,  ” that  for  hundreds  of  years  this  plant  has 
been  regarded  by  all  our  country  people  as  a kind  of 
incarnated  vegetable  devil.  The  ladies,  however,  with 
their  usual  adroitness,  turned  the  devil  to  account  (as 
they  usually  do),  so  although  its  generic  name  was 
that  of  one  of  the  three  Fates,  the  specific  name 
revealed  the  fact  that  women  who  wanted  to  be  good- 
looking  used  thisplant  (or  rather  its  decoction)— hence 
its  name  of  bella-donna.  There  can  be  not  the  slightest 
doubt  that  the  “ belladonna”  is  a most  poisonous  plant. 
It  belongs  to  the  same  natural  order  as  the  potatoes — 
but,  in  England,  I have  never  found  this  suggestively 
poisonous  plant  except  near  ruined  nunneries.  It  is 
seldom  collected  near  ruined  monasteries,  although  I 
have  discovered  it  lingering  there.  There  is  in  our 
old  country  at  least,  and  I prognosticate  in  Australia, 
a possib'e  botanical  archaeology.  Plants  linger  round 
ruins  longer  than  the  ruins  linger. 
According  to  the  estimate  of  Mr.  B.  E.  Fernow, 
chief  of  the  Forestry  Division  of  the  United  States 
Department  of  Agriculture,  the  existing  American 
railroads  annually  require  73,000,000  ties,  equal  to 
365,000,000  cubic  feet  of  lumber,  which  latter  could  only 
be  produced  by  1,000,000  acres  of  natural  forest  land. 
Timber  is  advancing  in  value  every  year,  for  it  is  getting 
scarcer.notmoreabundant.  The  world  will  find  this  out 
before  long.  It  is  much  easier  to  cut  down  a big  tree 
than  to  grow  one,  and  takes  a shorter  time.  The 
Yankees,  therefore,  are  going  in  for  metal  ties  for 
their  railroads. — Australasian. 
Bones  and  Shells. — A reader  wishes  to  know  if 
the  hens  can  get  lime  from  bones  as  easily  as  from 
other  materials,  and  writes  : — “ Is  it  necessary  to  give 
shells,  limestone  or  lime  in  any  form  if  I feed  bones 
to  my  fowls?”  The  bones  are  more  soluble,  are 
digestible  and  'contain,  also,  both  carbonaceous  and 
nitrogeneous  matter.  A shell  is  of  the  same 
composition  as  limestone,  marble  and  chalk.  A 
bone  contains  both  mineral  and  animal  matter,  and 
is  food.  It  is  phosphate  of  lime,  being  the  best 
form  of  lime  known  for  poultry, — Florida  Agriculturist. 
