576 
Supplement to the "Tropical Agriculturist." 
[Feb. 1, 1903 
chopped with a ho» (or mammoty) and raked 
until the ground is thoroughly pulvisrized and the 
ftshea well mired with the soil, all sticks, roots 
and stones being removed. 
Do not make the beds too narrow or they will 
get too dry ; 6 feet is a very good width, but they 
may be as long as desired. It is better to have 
the plants too thin than too thick, as crowded 
plants grow weak and spindly, having no strength 
to overcome changed conditions, and when trans- 
planted many of them die. They do not start to 
grow readily and are more subject to the ravages 
of cut-worms and other pests, causing many 
missing plants, making your garden very irregular 
in growth, and entailing much extra work in the 
end. But if your seeds are thinly sown the 
plants grow stocky, with good rooti, and are 
strong and healthy growers, requiring less mois- 
ture when transplanted. They grow up readily, 
■oon getting out of the way of pests, and you 
have a more uniform field. 
If you desire to test the vitality of your seed 
before sowing, take a few in your fingers and 
sprinkle them on a hot stove ; if they are good 
they will pop and crackle, but if not they will 
burn and crumble away. When sowing small 
■eads, mix them with cornmeal or slacked 
lime, as this will show on the bed, and you can 
■e« what you are doing. Lime is pieferred, as it 
is a good fertiliser. After sowing do not rake, but 
tramp or pat in the seed with the back of a spade. 
Do not sow all your seed at once, but at 
intervals of two weeks, that you may have plants 
of the proper size for transplanting when wanted ; 
iow more than you are likely to need, tnat you 
may be able to select the strongest and best 
plants. In order to keep your plants free from 
disease and insects, and to get the very best 
results, it is necessary to canvas your beda. Take 
board* fcnd set them on edge all around the bed, 
driving stakes on either side to keep them in 
place, and thus form a box around it, closing the 
joints with earth so as to make them insect-proof. 
The boards should come 5 or 6 inches above the 
top of the bed. Drive a row of nails on the 
outside of the box, 10 or 12 inches apart, all 
around, leaving I inch projecting ; have a sheet 
made of the thinnest cheese cloth, the size of the 
bed, with holes around the edges to correspond 
with the nails driven into the box ; stretch this 
sheet over the bed, slipping! the holes in the edges 
over the nails. If the bed is large, lay small 
poles across the box frame at short distances, to 
keep the covering from sagging. Be sure to get 
the very thinnest cloth, that light and air may 
penetrate. 
This covering usually stays on all the time 
until the bed is abandoned ; but watch your 
plants, and, if they do not appear strong and 
healthy, you can remove the covering for a time. 
Make a ditch around the bed to carry off the 
water during rainy weather. If it is necessary at 
any time to water the plants, it should be done 
about sundown, the covering laid off, and, as 
aoon as the watering is finished, replaced. 
It is best to draw the water for this purpos* in 
. tb* forenoon, and let it stand in the sun and get 
■ 'WmA> cold water chills both the plants «md 
the soil. It will be found that a canvas-covered 
bed retains the moisture better than any other, and 
also induces a more uniform temperature. 
[The above directions are hy Mr. E. S. Nevill 
from the Queensland Agricultural Journal of 
March, 1898, referred to in our i-sue for December 
last.— Ed. a. 3f.] 
« 
PLANT LIFE. 
[a series op simpl« lectures intended 
for a class op junior students.] 
lecture iv. 
As I have already said it is with the soil that 
we generally connect plants, and indeed it is from 
the soil that the important part of the food ,of 
plants is drawn. This is done through the roots. 
I must here impress upon you an important fact, 
namely, that the food of plants which is drawn 
from the soil is taken up only in a liquid form. 
Now it is not to be supposed that all the necessary 
food is already in that form ; some of it may be 
and some not. As you may be aware some sub- 
stances are soluble in water, but some require 
the aid of other substances called solvents to 
dissolve them. Now the water in the soil in- 
variably contains carbonic acid gas dissolved in 
it, the gas being produced by the decomposition 
of organic matter in the soil and brought into it 
in other ways. But the important point for you 
to remember is that water containing carbonic 
acid has a greater dissolving power than pure 
water. We may therefore expect to find a certain 
proportion of plant food already in a stnte of 
solution in the water in the soil and ready to be 
taken up by the roots. But there is also a good 
deal of the food of plants that requires to be 
dissolved out of the solid particles which 
compose soil, and this dissolving action is carried 
on by what is known as the acid sap present in 
the roots. By the aid of this acid sap which 
contains more powerful solvents than carbonic 
acid, plants are able to attack and dissolve the 
solid food particles present in the soil and utilize 
them for their nutrition. The process by which 
these liquids enter the roots of plants may be 
spoken of as absorption. 
You must not suppose that everytLing in the 
soil is plant food, no more than every form of 
vegetation is food for animals. The necessary 
elements of plant food are distributed throughout 
the bulk of the soil and form by no means a 
large proportion of it. We speak of soils being 
fertile or unfertile according to the proportion 
of these necessary ingredients of plant food 
present in the soil. The soil we may look upon 
as the "element" in which the plant exists and 
flourishes, the greater bulk of it being required 
for fixing the plant in position so that its roots 
may travel through it in search of those ingredients 
which constitute the food of the plant In 
addition to the solid matter of the soil, moisture 
or water must be present so that there necessary 
food ingredients may be dissolved in it and bs 
absorbed into the pl&ut in the form of solutions.'. 
These solutions are weak, that is to say there i» 
comparatively a small quantity of food taken up 
