Dec. 1, 1899.] Supplement to the " Tropical Agriculturist:' 
443 
If an animal is dull and depressed with a feeble 
appetite arising from a sluggish liver, it is noi, a 
stimulant that it wants, but a dose of opening 
medicine to relieve the congested liver and tne 
inactive bowels, and by careful feeduig to prevent 
a recurrence of these conditions- 
D. HUTCHEON, c.v.s. 
GENEEAL ITEMS. 
The Town and Country Journal Intely published 
the following method of pasteuriang milk :— The 
vessel containing the milk, which may be the 
bottle from which it is to be used or any other 
suitable vessel, is placed inside of a larger vessel 
of metal, which contains the water. If a bottle, 
it is plugged with absorbent cotton, if this be at 
hand, or, in its absence, other clean cotton will 
answer. A small fruit jar, loosely coTered, may 
be used instend of a bottle. The requirements are 
simply that the interior vessel shall be raised 
about half-an-inch above the bottom of the other, 
and that the water shall reach nearly, or quite, as 
high as the milk. The apparatus is then healed 
on a range or stove until the water reaches a 
temperature of 155 degrees Fahr., when it is re- 
moved from the heat and kept tightly covered 
for half-an-hour. The milk bottles are then taken 
out and kept in a cool place. The milk may be 
used at any time within M hours. A temperature 
of 150 degrees maintained for half-an-liour is 
sufiBcient to destroy any germs likely to be present 
in the milk, and it is found in practice that raising 
the temperature to 155 degree-^ and rlien allowing 
it to stand in the heated water for half-an-hour, 
ensures the proper temperature for the required 
time. The temperature should not be raised above 
155 degrees, otherwise the taste and the quality 
of the milk will be impaired. The simplest plan 
is to take a tin pail, and invert a perforated tin 
pie-plate in the bottom, or have made for it a 
removable false bottom perforated with holes, and 
having legs half-an-inch high, to allow circulation 
of the water. The milk is set on this false 
bottom, and sufficient water is put into the pail 
to reach the level of the surface of the milk in 
the bottle. A hole may be punched in the 
cover of the pail, a cork inserted, and a chemical 
thermometer put through the cork, so that the 
bulb dips into the water. The temperature can 
thus be watched without removing the cover. If 
preferred, an ordinary dairy thermometer may be 
used, and the temperature tested from time to 
time by removing the lid. This is very easily 
arranged, and is just as satisfactory as the patented 
apparatus sold for this purpose. 
We (says the Queensland Agricultural Journal) 
have begun an industry in the Colony which is 
rapidly expanding and which promises ere long 
to rise to great importance. This is the Coffee- 
planting Industry. Few people need be told that 
while many years ago Coffee-planting was the 
principal industry in Ceylon, at the present day 
coffee in that island is a thing of the past, owing 
to the ravages of t!ie parasitic fungus {Hemileia 
vastatrix) known as the Coffee leaf-disease. Of 
late years spasmodic attempts have been made to 
revive the industry, but without avail. The 
existence of wild coffee in the jungle operates 
against the planters. The disease remaining with 
the plants cannot be eradicated, and what was 
once a source of gre;it wealth to the planters and 
consequent prosperity to Ceylon has had to be 
finally abandoned, and cinchona, cacao, (sic) and 
tea have successively taken the place of coffee. 
The amount of water absorbed by large trees is 
very considerable, and hence ring-barking has a 
marked effect on the grass. The destruction of 
heavy timber over a large area of country has, 
notwithstanding all that has been said to the 
contrary, the effect of reducing the rainfall, 
particularly in flat country. But the water 
beneath the surface, which went to nourish the 
growing trees, is, after the latter are destroyed, 
left to nourish by capillary attraction the roots of 
the grass, which grows more luxuriantly in con- 
sequence. Not unfrequently springs burst forth 
spontaneously in ring-barked country, owing to 
the superabundance of subterranean water now no 
longer expended in supplying the trees. 
The latest method of destruction of ants is said 
to be the use of gasoline. Pour about a half-pint 
of gasoline into the ant hill or nest, and set it 
afire. The gasoline will instantly spread through 
all the nest, and, as the heat on the surface 
increases, the gas will generate from the utmost 
recesseS' and the fire will cook the ants. Half-a- 
pint ol gasoline will burn from three to eight 
hours, ri ad kill every ant in the largest nest, as 
well as (.11 which attempt to enter it from without. 
Here is another remedy : — When it is a big 
mound nest, pour a little bisulphide of carbon 
down each hole and throw a wet bag over the nest 
immediately afterwards. Eemove it in a couple 
of minutes and apply a lighted stick over each 
opening. The fumes explode, wreck the nest, and 
burn all the ants beneath. Care must be taken 
not 'o put too much bisulphide near the roots of 
fruit Li ses, as it will destroy them. Also, as it is 
very inflammable, no light or spark should be 
allowed to be near the bottle; which should be 
kept corked. It is well to have the lighted stick 
five or Feet long, though even if the nest 
explodes near the land no harm would be done. 
A farmer, writing to the New York Tribunt, 
says : — Eight years ago I lost about one-third of 
my crop of corn and cow peas on account of the 
weevil, but luckily I made a discovery that has 
been worth many dollars to me since. During the 
same year I sacked up a lot of cow peas, and 
about one-fourth of the sacks used were salt sacks, 
with the salt still clinging to them. When I was 
ready to market the peas I unsacked the lot, and 
found to my surprise that the peas in the salt 
sacks were in perfect condition, while those in the 
other sacks were almost destroyed by the weevil. 
When I gathered my grain crops the next fall I 
used salt sacks entirely with the same success. It 
is the custom in this section to put the corn in the 
barn with the shuck on, and the consequence is 
that a great many insects secrete themselves in 
the shuck and afterwards destroy a great deal of 
