FiCB. 1, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGmCULTURIST. 
52d 
is "VnaTaria, which sweeps away men, women, and 
children. One most important hint for the 
eombating of malaria is furnished by the dis- 
covery made by the expedition in New Guinea 
that malaria is at bottom a children's disease. If 
you examine the children at a place where 
malaria is endemic, you find every one of them 
under the age of two suffering from malaria. In 
the older children, up to the age of ten, malaria 
Earasites are found but not so frequently. The 
est way to ascertain whether a place has malaria 
is to examine the children. This method ^yas 
employed in Isew Guinea and in the neighbouring 
islands, and it was found that there is only one 
point on the coast free of malaria, and that some 
of the islands are free, others not. The com- 
bating of malaria must begin with the children, 
but it is also of paramount importance to attack 
all mild or latent cases. The latent cases play 
the same part in the combating of malaria as in 
the combating of cholera. 
That this is not mere theory was signally 
proved by a practical experiment made by the 
expedition on the plantations at Stephansort. Of 
the 700 inhabitants 137 were ill of malaria and all 
biit a few isolated cases were cured. Special 
attention was paid to all new born and newly 
arrived children. Those children arrived remained 
in good health, whereas till then it had been im- 
possible to keep children alive there. The ex- 
periment which succeeded there on a small scale 
will succeed elsewhere on a large. The great 
decrease of malaria in Germany is sig nificant in 
this connection. The draining of the swamps 
alone does not account for it. Gnats, and in 
particular the various kinds of anopheles, are 
everywhere to be found. The real reason is that 
quinine has become accessible even to the poor. 
In the marshy lands of North-West Germany 
everybody now keeps quinine in his house, but 
thirty years ago a doctor had to think twice 
before prescribing quinine for a poor patient. 
The dying out of malaria in Germany is strikingly 
reflected in the statistics of the army. In 1869 
the number of cases in the army was 13,500, in 
1879 9,000, in 1889 1.500, and in 1896 only 230. 
How is it with other proposals for the com- 
bating of malaria ? One of them is to annihilate 
the gnats. Here and there perhaps this may be 
done by pouring petroleum into swamps, but on 
a great scale it is impracticable. Another pro- 
posal is to protect people against gnats by means 
of ethereal oils ; but the effect of such oils lasts 
only a short time, Another means of protection 
is the mosquito-net ; but such nets are seldom 
worn after sunset, and they often let mosquitoes 
through. The mosquito-proof house is open to 
similar objections. All attempts to confer im- 
munity from malaria have hitherto failed. The 
prophylactic treatment with quinine, on the 
other hand, is of value, but it cannot be carried 
out generally and long. 
How, then is malaria to be combated in our 
colonies? We must send out medical men trained 
to work with the microscope, and follow the 
example of the Dutch Colonial administration in 
giving the people quinine gratis. The first thing 
necessary is to send some medical men, es- 
pecially to New Guinea and South- West Africa, 
as malaria-doctors. This measure, based on the 
new knowledge we have gained of the manner 
in which malaria spreads, would afford the pro- 
spect of our getting the upper hand of malaria 
ere long iu colonies, which is the preliminary 
condition of their prosperity. Professor Koach's ' 
lecture was received with loud applause and 
Professor Gerhard t (one of the medical luminaries 
of Berlin) delivered a short speech, in which he 
praised Koch as an investigator wholnot^only 
f rought new facts to light, but also taught how 
to turn them to practical account.— Pioneer, 
Dec. 23. 
THE DATE PALM IN SOUTH ALGERIA. 
I have been reading a little pamphlet in French 
on the caltivation of the Date Palm in South 
Algeria by the Agriculture and Industrial Society 
of South Algeria. They have been exhibiting dateg, 
and also Eau de-vie made from dates at the Parig 
Exhibition. Aa the French mode of caltivation may 
interest anyone in India who may be inclined to 
try date plantations, I give herewith a translation 
of their method. 
The pamphlet says that when date seeds are sown 
they produce a preponderance of males and in- 
ferior varieti<;s, although sometimes new varietiea 
occur. En passant one might note that the trees 
which now produce the finest dates in the world 
could not have originated except from seeds. lo 
Algeria they plant the offsets of the best sorts of 
secure the same kind of fine date trees. The nativta 
plant their offsets out at once, but this method 
gives usually oqjy 40 to 45 per cent that 
strike and grow. The South Algerian Society have 
adopted another method, which is the following : 
They plant the o&aets in manured soil in pots 
about 15 inches in diameter and as deep. Then 
they plunge the pots in a nursery, where they can 
be easily tended and irrigated. When they root, 
they are lifted out of the pots with their ball o( 
roots, and planted in the form of a plantation. 
While the tree are growing, they take catch-cropa 
from between the rows, such as lucerne, barley and 
other low crops. Great attention is paid to the data 
palms by regular irrigation from artesian wells. By 
this method of striking the offsets, they secure from 
90 to 95 per cent of rootei plants. Their best sort is 
called deglet nour. They have also what are oalled 
di-y dates, I suppose similar to those liroagbt down 
to India by Afghan traders under the name of 
chohara. The latter sorts never ripen into the trans- 
parent sweetmeaty sorts, such as those we see In 
the London shops. E Bonavia, mb. 
London, 28th Nov. 1900.— Indian Gardening. 
. <«. 
DR. WATT'S LATEST ON TEA PESTS. 
Dr. Geo. Watt, Reporter on Economic Pro- 
ducts to the Government of India, who, with Mr. 
Harold H Mann, has been on a tour through tha 
tea districts, has returned to Calcutta, and has 
brought away with him a very large mass of 
material in the shape of specimens of pests and 
blights which attack the tea bush, and which 
will require much time and labour to investigate 
and identify. Dr. Watt's Pests and Blights of 
the Tea Plant will have to be revised and con- 
siderably enlarged after he has worked up all the 
specimens he has brought away with him. It 
should be noted that the specimens he has now 
brought with him, and which are being added 
to almost daily by Mr. Mann (who is still touring 
in the tea districts) are nearly all new. During 
Dr. Watt's travels among the tea gardens of 
Assam be found himself on one estate on which 
a certain kind of caterpillar was devastating the 
entire garden. The Manager told him that he 
had been capturing these caterpillars at the rate 
of eight " Acme " chestsful every day. and on 
counting up his bag, found he had slaughtered 
2,700,000 of them I Had he not done this little 
