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THF TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[September i, 1890. 
there will be a highly trained Stock Inspector with 
a staff of salustry subordinatea in every taluk, when 
the sense of the country will be actively on the side 
of the preventive and curative staff, and when better 
stock management will remove the predisposing causes 
of epidemics. This is not yet within measurable dis- 
tance, but we consider that the Department should 
at once bend its efforts, to obtain as quickly as pos- 
sible a considerably strengthened staff of Stock Inspec- 
tors,” But the proposal did not meet with the approval 
of Government, which considered such a policy im- 
practicable, as it would require a whole army of 
Stock Inspectors and Salustries, and even then but 
little good would result, in the present state of opinion 
of the farming classes, unless the former were en- 
trusted with wide and stringent powers of compulsion, 
which would be an evil to be avoided ; for taking into 
consideration the classes from which the staff is re- 
cruited, their low salaries, and the opportunities they 
have for oppression, they would gravely abuse the 
authority en'rusted to them. Government also allu- 
ded to the fact, that there were doubts whether the 
effects of disease are so serious as they are represented. 
Mr. Robertson, for example, is of opinion, that losses 
of cattle result from the impoverished condition, 
into which the stock frequently get and not from 
the severity of the diseases that prevail. From 
statistics, it is found that cattle mortality from disease 
is not high, while cases of epidemics, seriously 
affecting ploughing rattle, or the mere valuable animals, 
are comparatively rare. Government agreed with Mr. 
Benson, that cattle must die of something, and as very 
few in this country are slaughtered for food, they 
wou d multiply far beyond the means of subsistence, 
if epidemics were stamped out, so that betides further 
deteriorating in quality, they would die from sheer 
starvation in as great numbers, as they now do from 
disease. The efforts of officers of the Cattle Disease 
Department were further handicapped hy the passive 
and even active obstruction offered by the ryots to 
all efforts to assist them. With this opposition, religious 
scruples, apathy and ignorance of the ryots to deal 
with the Department was utterly useless, unless a 
very expensive staff was entertained, with summary 
powers, which was not expedient at present, and 
would be fraught with great danger to the people. 
Government therefore come to the conclusion that the 
amount already spent on the Department had been 
literally wasted, and it directed operations in this 
diiecticn to be closed at once. 
- <P~ 
Maize on Indian Coen . — “ Old Resident ” w’rites : 
— '‘No doubt Sir Arthur Havelock was thinking, 
when he made hia remark at matale, of the 
almcst universal cultivation of maize in south 
Africa, in contrast with the scarcity of the culture 
here. But the caute of this you have already 
explained.” 
Nuteitive Vai ue of Foods.— Speaking roughly, a 
quart of oysters contains, on the average, about the 
same quantity of actual nutritive substance as a 
quart of milk or a pound of very lean beefa or I J 
pounds of fresh codfish, or two-thirds of a pound of 
bread. But while the weight of actual nutriment in 
the different quantities of food material named is 
very nearly the same, the quality is widely different. 
That of the very lean meat or codfish consists mostly 
of what are called, in. chemical language, protein com- 
pounds, or “ flesh formers,” the substances of which 
make blood, muscle, tendon, bone, brain and other 
nitrogenous tissues. That of the bread contains but 
little of these, and consists chiefly of starch, with 
a little fat and other compounds, which serve the 
body as fuel, and supply it with heat and muscular 
power. The nutritive substance of oysters contains 
considerable of both the flesh-forming and more 
especially heat and force-giving ingredients. Oysters 
come nearer to milk than almost any other common 
fooii ; their values for supplying the body with 
material to build up its parts, repair its wastes, and 
furnish it with heat and energy, would be pretty 
neatly tlie same. — Century. 
Bamboos were sold last year by the Forest De- 
partment in Bengal to the number of nearly 
fifteen millions. As compared with -the previous 
year, there was a falling-off of more than a million 
in the number of bamboos sold. The decrease 
was pretty general in all the forest divisions, but 
occurred chiefly in Chittagong, where the fear of 
raids kept men from going into the forest. — Pioneer. 
Aetificial Tea. — The Calcutta Caplial for May 20 
has the following ; — “ A new industry has sprung up 
in Germany with the young leaves of the wild strawberry 
plant. Having been carefully dried, they are used 
instead of China tea, and are said to approach that 
beverage very closely in taste. An addition of young 
bramble and woodruff leaves is said to add to the 
excellent flavour cf this most inexpensive of teas.” — 
Grocer. 
Sdgae is cheap enough now, as every sugar-planter 
knows. But hitherto we have only thought of it as 
a sweetening agent. Now we are discovering it has 
other properties, which may tend to raise its market 
price. An Italian engineer has proved that if sugar 
be introduced into the water of steam-boilers it will 
retard (if not prevent) incrustation. In a boiler of 20 
horse-power, posses.'^ed of 126 tnbes, 41h. of sugar a 
week was found sufficient to retard incrustation. In 
Butler’s Erewhon we have a delightful chapter devoted 
to the period when our machines will become sensi- 
bly automatic, and take the place of supposed ra- 
tional creatures. The above fact seems to be mov- 
ing in that direction. Our steam-boilers are getting 
as fond of sug-ar as children. — Australasian. 
Onions. — For a cold on the chest there is no better 
specific for most persons than well boiled or roasted 
onions. They should be sliced and boiled in milk till 
soft enough to smash np and form a sort of gruel. 
Drink or sup just before or after getting into bed. 
They may not agree with everyone, but to persons 
with good digestions, they tvill not only be found to 
be a most excellent remedy for a cough, and the 
clogging of the bronchial tubes, which is usually the 
cause of the cough ; hut if eaten freely at the outset 
of a cold, they will usually break up what promised, 
from the severity of the attack, to have been a serious 
one. A writer in a medical journal recently recom- 
mended the giving of yomiy raw onions to children 
three or four times a week, and when they get too 
large and strong to he eaten raw then to boil or 
rrast them, but not to abandon their free use. Another 
writer, advocating their use, says; “During unhealthy 
seasons when diphtheria and like contagious diseases 
prevail onions ought to be eaten in the spring of the 
year at least once a week. Onions are invigorating and 
prophylactic beyond description. Further I challenge 
the medical fraternity or any mother ta point out a 
place where children have died from diphtheria or 
ecaTlelina, ruginosa &c., where onions were freely used.” 
Diseases in Plants.— A capital paper appears in the 
last number of the Oardener’s Chronicle by Mr. H 
Marshall Ward, a naturalist who has come rapidly 
to the front, on the important subject of the diseases 
of plants. His essay is on chlorosis or “ yellows” — 
that is, tbe absence of green in leaves, and the sub- 
stitution of yellow instead. Unfortunately there are 
several different kinds of chlorosis, but that usually 
affecting plants is a diseased condition of the leaves, 
in which the absence of tbe green colouring matter 
is due to the deficiency of iron salts in the soil. It 
should be remembered that leaves affected by chlor- 
osis are incapable of assimilating carbon. It the leaves 
are young, wtitering them with a weak solution of 
iron salts will restore their greenness; although, of 
course, the best plan is to apply the solution of iron 
to the roots. There is usually plenty of iron in all 
soils, but it is in a fixed or stable condition, very 
little of it being available by the plants in tbe soluble 
state. Iron sulphate is, perhaps, the best applicant 
to the roots of affected plants, inasmuch as it dissolves 
slowly and yields up its iron in an available condition. 
Garden or cultivated plants which grow rapidly are 
much more liable to chlorosis than field and witd 
plants which grow slowly, — Australasian. 
