Sept,  i,  1892.] 
THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
2>S 
deserve  all  praise.  He  oould  not  see,  Mr.  Morris 
continued,  why  the  Europeans  did  not  go  in  for 
.BICE  CULTIVATION  IN  CEYLON. 
There  was  nothing  to  prevent  it.  In  Carolina  the 
white  planters  of  this  were  most  successful.  The 
C-eylon  planters  had  done  much  with  caeao,  and  their 
production  of  this  was  the  best  that  came  into 
the  market  but  if  Ceylon  went  on  increasing 
its  supply  of  this,  the  West  India  islands  would 
suffer  dreadfully.  He  hoped  nothing  would  cause 
tea  to  fail.  When  in  Ceylon  ha  had  observed 
that  the  coffee  had  been  enormously  pruned  and 
forced  by  stimulating  manure.  This  he  deemed  to 
be  hurtful  to  the  permanence  of  the  plant,  and 
if  the  same  course  was  pursued  with  tea  it  might 
be  followed  by  the  same  result.  “You  cannot  go 
on  for  ever  in  the  same  way  with  any  form  of 
plant  cultivation.”  The  authorities  at  Kew  were 
most  desirous  to  help  all  institutions  throughout 
the  world.  The  late  Dr.  Thwaites  had  had  much 
to  do  with  starting  both  oinchona  and  tea.  Mr. 
Ferguson  had  alluded  to 
THE  LATE  EXPEDITION  TO  THE  ANDES. 
But  wjiy,  he  would  ask,  should  we  go  into 
foreign  countries  to  find  land  suited  for  coffee 
when  we  possessed  any  amount  of  such  land 
within  our  own  possessions?  He  oould  tell  them 
of  land  in  British  Honduras  admirably  suited  for 
this,  where  there  was  an  abundance  of  labour.  It 
was  the  finest  land  in  the  world  for  coffee.  In 
Dominica  ooffee  had  died  out,  but  there  was  no 
reason  why  it  should  not  be  successfully  reculti- 
vated there.  Thirty  to  forty  thousand  aores  were 
ready  and  available  in  that  island,  and  they  had 
never  had  any  leaf-disease  in  the  West  India 
islands.  He  begged  to  thank  Mr.  Ferguson  for 
the  compliments  that  gentleman  had  paid  to  the 
authorities  at  Kew. 
Sir  Arthur  Gordon  said  that  as  he  had  to  attend 
another  meeting  his  remarks  must  be  brief.  He 
thanked  Mr.  Ferguson  for  his  very  interesting 
paper.  He  had  no  remarks  to  offer  that  would 
be  worth  hearing,  but  he  had  been  struck  with 
two  points  in  the  paper  read.  In  the  first 
place — what  a splendid  example  Ceylon  offered  of 
British  obstinacy,  of  Britons  who  do  not  know 
when  they  are  beaten  ! As  to  the  seoond  point 
he  was  strongly  reminded  of  the  unwisdom  of 
paving  all  your  eggs  in  one  basket.  There  was 
hlenty  of  room  in  Ceylon  for  further  trial.  Ho 
thought  hardly  enough  had  been  said  by  Mr. 
Ferguson  as  to  coconut  cultivation.  To  his  mind 
it  was  a most  stable  industry.  He  was  naturally 
interested  in  Ceylon  as  an  old  Governor,  but  for 
the  same  reason  he  had  sympathy  with  the 
planters  of  the  West  Indies,  and  he  thought  Mr. 
Ferguson  had  hardly  done  justioe  to  the  planters 
of  those  oolonies.  Both  they  and  those  of  Ceylon 
were  in  a friendly  rivalry,  but  neither  one  nor  the 
other  of  them  should  abuse  each  other. 
DR.  KIRTLKAR  ON  THE  VEGETABLE 
KINGDOM. 
The  fourth  public  lecture  of  the  season  under  the 
auspices  of  the  Dnyan  Prasarak  Mandali  was  delivered 
at  the  Framjee  Cowasjee  Institute,  Mr.  K.  R. 
Kama,  president  of  the  Society,  being  in  the  chair. 
The  subject  selected  for  the  evening  was  “Reproduc- 
tion in  the  Vegetable  Kingdom,  ” and  the  learned 
lecturer,  Surgeon-Major  K.  R.  Kirtikar,  handled  his 
subject  in  such  a popular  and  interesting  manner 
that  the  discourse  was  listened  to  with  marked  at- 
tention throughout.  Dr.  Kirtikar  commenced  his 
address  as  follows  : — 
“ Reproduction  in  the  vegetable  kingdom  as  a 
general  rule  occurs  by  means  of  seeds,  which  are  the 
product  of  the  fertilization  of  the  ovule — a part  of 
the  female  element  of  a complete  tower — by  the 
discharge  of  pollen  from  the  male  element  known  as 
stamens.  The  vegetable  kingdom  differs  from  the 
animal  kingdom  in  its  method  of  reproduction  in 
this— that,  whereas  animals  are  born  direct  from  the 
parent  in  the  shape  of  eggs,  or  actually  formed 
beings,  in  the  vegetable  world,  on  the  other  hand 
the  seed  of  a plant  has  to  be  sown  in  the  ground 
or  other  suitable  material,  before  a new  plant  comes 
into  existence.  There  are  exceptions  to  this  general 
rule.  Flowers  are  generally  the  organs  of  reproduc- 
tion. It  is  in  them  and  through  them  that  the  seed 
is  formed.  There  are  some  plants,  however,  which 
are  flowerless,  such  as  fungi,  lichens,  mosses,  ferns, 
&c.  In  them  innumerable  spires  are  formed  instead 
of  what  we  usually  understand  as  “seeds.”  These 
spires  reproduce  the  parent-plant.  It  is  not  that  all 
spires  perform  the  work  of  reproduction.  If  they  did 
so,  one  single  fungus,  say,  a puffball,  will  reproduce 
so  many  of  its  kind,  as  to  cover  a whole  country 
within  a very  short  space  of  time.  Even  among 
flowering  plants,  such  as  the  potato,  the  seed  is  not 
absolutely  necessary  for  producing  new  plants.  The 
little  “ eyes  on  the  tubes  of  the  potato  represent 
the  buds  of  the  future  plant.  A potato  cut  into 
pieces,  with  each  piece  out  carrying  on  it  an  eye, 
will  be  enough  to  give  a new  plant  complete  in  all 
respects,  which  will  befit  in  every  way  to  bear  fresh 
potatoes.  Thus  the  growth  of  the  potato  is  indepen- 
dent of  the  seed.  Similarly  in  the  arum-order,  repro- 
duction takes  place  from  its  tuberous  roots,  as  in 
Sooran  and  Aloo  as  also  in  Karinda , Bataloo,  Kanaqi, 
though  they  bear  flowers,  and  ofteu  showy,  ones  too. 
The  tuberous  roots  throw  up  new  shoots  of  the 
future  plant,  which  as  it  grows,  absorbs  the  tuber, 
and  when  it  has  completed  its  growth  by  drawing 
its  nourishment  from  the  substance  of  the  tubers, 
it  throws  out  afresh  tuber,  which  proves  the  repro- 
ducer of  the  future  plant.  And  so  the  process  goes 
on  from  year  to  year,  or  season  to  season.  The 
Ananas  (pineapple)  in  same  way  requires  no  seed 
to  reproduce  its  kind.  The  tuft  of  leaves,  which 
graces  its  top,  if  planted,  gives  a fresh  plant,  capable 
of  producing  a perfect  ananas  popularly  known  as 
its  fruit.  Plants  produced  in  this  way  are,  however, 
limited  in  number — thus,  for  instance,  from  one 
tuber  of  Soovan  or  Aloo,  you  can  get  only  one  plant 
at  a time,  two  or  at  the  most  three  ; but  from  one 
flowering  plant  which  bears  seeds  several  plants  can 
be  obtained  at  a time.  Hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
fruits  are  produced,  for  instance,  by  the  Wanda , 
which  is  so  prolific  that  it  is  known  to  bear  on  a 
single  tree  as  many  as  five  hundred  and  thirty-nine 
thousand  seeds  every  year.  Linnaes  has  calculated 
that  a single  tobacco  plant  is  capable  of  throwing 
out  forty  thousand  seeds.  Ray  calculated  on  one 
occasion  as  many  as  thirty-two  thousand  seeds  off  a 
fruit-bearing  branch  of  poppy.  Were  all  these  seeds 
to  perform  the  work  of  reproducing  plants,  they 
would  within  a short  space  of  time  cover  the  whole 
earth  with  nothing  but  vegetation,  and  man)  and 
other  animals  will  have  hardly  an  inch  of  ground 
to  move.  Generally  speaking  the  male  and  female 
organs  of  reproduction  are  to  be  found  in  one  and 
the  same  flower,  or  separately  on  one  and  the  same 
tree ; or  the  male  and  the  female  organs  may  exist 
on  separate  trees  of  the  same  kind,  far  apart  from 
each  other.  Darwin  has  enunciated  the  doctrine  that 
the  seed  produced  from  the  male  and  female  elements 
of  the  same  flower  is  weakly,  and  generates  in  time ; the 
seed  produced  from  the  female  flower  of  one  tree, 
and  the  male  of  another  similar  tree  is  healthier, 
more  vigorous,  and  better  able  to  perfrom  the 
function  of  reproduction.  From  this,  however,  it 
must  not  be  supposed,  that  equally  vigorous,  substan- 
tial, and  useful  seed  is  always  incapable  of  being  pro- 
duced by  the  former  process,  or  that  the  plants  of  such 
seeds  as  is  obtained  by  cross-fertilization  is  ahvai/s 
or  infallibly  capable  of  producing  a plant  of  the  best 
kind,  or  that  for  the  purposes  of  producing  a plant 
of  the  kind,  cross-fertilization  is  absolutely  necessary. 
For  the  researches  of  Sacks  have  amply  incontestibly 
shown  that  for  hundreds  and  thousands  of  generations 
