Supplement to the " frnpical AgriouUurist." [April 1, 1903. 
THE CAEOB OR LOCUST BEAN BEET. 
This is also known as tlie Algaroba bean or 
St. Joliii's Bread, and botnnically as Ceratonia 
Siliqua, The seeds are siud to be the original of 
the carat weights of jeweller?. 
According to the A'ot ^t^Z/c-tm it is a native of 
SoLilliern Europe. The tree is leguminous and 
usually grow 15 to 25 ft. high, with few branches 
and dajk green pinnate leaves, composed of 2 or 3 
pairs of leaflets of a leathery texture. The 
flowers are polygamous or dioecious (self-fertilis- 
ing or unisexual on different plants). The 
pods nie full of sweet mucilage, 6 to 10 inches 
long and contain many seeds. They are often 
eaien by the poorer people in the Levant and 
serve as a useful food for cattle. The seeds are 
also said to be used in the preparation of mucilage. 
In Italy and Southern Spain the tree is cultivated 
in dry strong kcaliiies and yields valuable crops. 
The value of beans exported from Cyprus reaches, 
in some years, £65,000. There are several culti- 
vated varieties. As the tree is dioecious, male 
or female branches as is necessary must be 
engrafted to ensure fertilisation. 
For cultivation in hot and dry districts, wilh 
strong soils, says the Keiu Bulletin, there is little 
doubt that the carob is a valuable tree and deserves 
to be wildly cultivated. It requires warmer 
conditions than the orange, and is said to prefer 
a calcareous sub-soil. We fancy it should there- 
fore suit the northern part of the Island. It 
begins to bear about S years old, and a single 
tree may yield pods weighing in the aggregate 
about 2 cwts. 
Dr. Balfour refers to the locust bean tret as 
the Hu!-k tree, and mentions that the term locust 
in St. John's Bread (German : Johannisbrod) was 
given to the tree from a mistaken notion that its 
pods were the locusts referred to in Matt. iii. 4, 
and Mark i. 6, as forming part of the food of 
the Baptist. 
The Greek word Ceratia or Keratia (which is 
given to the pods owing to their resembling 
a slightly curved horn, (keras) has been translated 
husks " in the passage occurring in Luke xv. 
16, " the husks that tlie swine did eat." The 
tree is common in the South of Europe as well as 
Syria and Egypt, and the pods were formerly 
used in large quantity to feed swine and cattle. 
Horace has the following reference to them : 
" Vivit siliquis et pane secando " in Epist. II. 
i. 123. Perseus and Juvenal also allude to them, 
and Pliny describes them as food of pigs (Lib. 
XV. cap. 23, 24). 
A tree will sometimes produce 800 or 900 
lbs. of pods, useful for feeding horses, asses and 
mules. They were given to the British hoises 
in the Peniusula war, and are to some extent im- 
ported info England^for^both horse and cattle food. 
Farmers mix tlie beans with oil cake and meal. 
Another Algaroba bean tree distinct from, but 
closely related to the above is Prosopis Julifera, 
the metqnit or algaroba blanca, also wilh sweet 
succulent jjods used as food. The tree is growing 
freely in the Government Stock Garden, and can 
be propogatttd by cuttings. 
TOMATO WILT. 
By A, Despeissis. 
This disease has been unusually prominent on 
tomatoes this season. The trouble is a bacterial 
blight. G. Delacroix, a French scientist, who has 
it under observation, first attributed it to an 
organism described Bacillus solanacearum ; sub- 
sequent studies have since led him to state that 
the diseae in question is not to be attributed to 
this oragnism, but to another apparently unde- 
fcribed, to which the name ef B. solannicola is 
given. 
The attacked plants wilt suddenly and after 
a time leaves and stalks become discoloured and 
die. If a section is.made of the stem, the pith 
channel is found brown, small warty spots on the 
stem, not unlike the water core of apple«, let drop- 
lets of dirty white liquid exude. This liquid is 
full of bacteria. In potatoes this discolouration 
extends down the stalk to the tubers, which turn 
brown and rot. The disease is mostly spread by 
innoculation caused by the bite of insects ; it is also 
associated with a web-like ground plant fungus, 
Rhizoctonia Solani, which extends its meshes from 
l)lant to plant, boring directly into the healthy 
conical cell and thus giving and an entrance to 
the bacterife. 
The first stop to take is to spray with a 
poisonous mixture, and destory those insects which 
feed from plant to plant, thus spreading the 
disease. One ounce of Paris green in ten gallons 
of Bordeaux mixture will efl'ect this. Carefully 
dig round the diseased plants and prevent the 
spread of web-like fungus to healthy plants. 
Root up and carefully burn diseased plants. 
The organism causing this trouble is believed 
to be present in the soil from which it spreads 
to the pliuits, and unfavourable meteorological 
conditions are a contributing cause of the infection, 
Sour ground aggravates the disease. 
Tomatoes, potatoes, egg-fruit, black night- 
shade. Cape gooseberry, among other plants, har- 
bour the germs cf the disease, and for that reason 
should be avoided in the course of rotation over 
infested grcutid. — Journal of the Department of 
Ayriculture, Western Australia. 
CONDENSED MILK. 
Pfcw people have a clear idea of how condensed 
milk is prepared, and Mr. M, A, O'Callaghan's 
contributions on the subject in the Agricultural 
Gazette of New South Wales for January and 
March of this year (from which we sum- 
marise the information given below) ore worth 
perusal by all consumers of the article in question. 
In Ceylon the use of Nestle's and the Anglo- 
Swiss Condensed Milk Co.'s milk is very ex- 
tensive. 
Condensed milk may be defined as new milk 
reduced 'by evaporation in a vacuum pan to about 
a third of its original volume. Before steril- 
ising by heat was understood, the addition of 
cane-sugar was deemed essential ; now, however, 
we have both sweetened and unsweetened milk 
