October i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AGRIGULTURSST„ 273 
SUGGESTIONS AEFECTING THE PEESER- 
VATION OF TIMBER POSTS FOR TELE- 
GRAPH WIRES AND OTHER PURPOSES. 
A oorrespondent writes us that it has only been 
within the last few years that he has observed 
means to be taken for roofing in, so to speak, the 
tops of telegraph posts; but that he noticed recently 
that it is now the practice at home always in 
some way or other to neutralize the effect of sun 
and rain upon such exposed transverse surfaces. 
According to our own recollection of the telegraph 
posts which carry the wires of electric communi- 
cation along the less-frequented routes in this island, 
protection having such an object has always been 
ignored. The presumption possibly may be that, 
having regard to the relative rapidity with which 
the portions of such posts inserted in the ground 
decay, this matter of sheltering their tops is of 
comparatively little consequence. As to the justness 
of such a presumption, we cannot pretend to decide ; 
but as we know that efforts have been made — and 
with a great degree of success — to lengthen the 
duration of life of our telegraph posts in-so-far as 
that is dependent upon the preservation of the part 
below ground, it might not be unworth the while 
of the officers of our Telegraph Department to 
consider some method of protection to their tops. 
Whether, however, that department may be 
content to ignore this suggestion or not, 
it is certainly the fact that the question 
of timber protection may be usefully con- 
sidered by our planters and all other users 
of timber. For, given a soil which in a 
greater or lesser degree preserves timber placed 
in it — and many such soils there are known to 
be — the life of timber posts exposed to weather 
might be greatly prolonged beyond what is now 
normal to them. We can recall very many in- 
stances of employment in which our suggestions 
might prove to be of exceeding use. The top of 
a post of course lays bare both to moisture and 
excessive sun heat (both conditions tending largely 
to hasten decay) the constricted vessels formerly 
containing sap which have been exposed by the 
transverse out. It is well known to engineers and 
architects that the more the natural taper that 
is preserved to a pole, the longer will it remain 
sound. We have seen endeavours made to imitate 
this natural taper by cutting an artificial point. 
This is of course an absurd method ; for it neces- 
sarily lays bare a larger area of cross out vessels 
than would a merely flat top, and such cuttings 
expose further a large conical section of the 
vessels to which we have referred as being formerly 
sap-holders, while the area offered to perpendi- 
cular rainfall is precisely the same as if a flat 
lop surface had been left. 
There have been various methods adopted at home 
for protecting from the effects of weather the tops 
of posts. In the instance of square posts, two 
small boards mitred and nailed together will afford 
a sufficient roofing, and these are to be observed 
constantly fitted in the case of dressed signal posts. 
But for round posts, such as are the majority of 
those used for the support of telegraph wires, these 
miniature roofs will not do, and on most cross 
country lines in England a metal cap with a finial 
is fitted. We shall, however, have fulfilled our 
present object if we direct the attention of those 
who may use timber posts lor fences or other 
purposes to the importance of giving protec- 
tion to the tops of such timbers. Thought for 
the portion below ground only is not economical. 
In very many cases posts are found to bo decaying 
downwards, while below ground they are as sound 
as when first put in. Indeed, as wc have said, 
many soils are known — and clay among these very , 
prominently— to have a directly preservative effect 
upon timber, and in such cases it may be regarded 
as almost certain that a post will become useless 
from downward decay long before it has to be 
drawn owing to that due to the soil it has been 
placed in. It certainly is not a common thing to 
see any precaution of the nature we would recom- 
mend adopted here, and we believe many among 
our readers might profitably give heed to our sug- 
gestion. 
— — .-I — - - " . . - ■ . ■ I — 
THE ANTISEPTIC QUALITIES OF COFFEE. 
It has for a long time been thought that ground 
coffee possessed antiseptic or disinfectant properties. 
During some experiments upon the food value of 
coffee recently undertaken by Liidevitz, which were 
reported in Pharmaceutische Centralblatt, the chemist 
found that baoteria were retarded in their develop- 
ment in nutritive gelatine by relatively small quanti- 
ties of an aqueous infusion of coffee. Bacteria, as 
doubtless everyone knows, play an important part 
in the phenomena of putrefaction. The caffeine 
contained in the coffee appeared to be the ingredient 
which is thus specially active in retarding bacterial 
growth ; but on making experiments with pure 
caffeine upon infusions containing various species 
of bacterium, it was observed that its action was 
quite inconsiderable. It is rather to the empyreu- 
matic substances formed during the roasting of 
the coffee-berries that the anti-bacterial action of 
ground coffee must be attributed. In connection 
with these results we may recall a fact which has 
long been known, namely, that when fresh raw meat 
is dusted over with ground coffee it can be dried 
without the least sign of becoming putrid. —Groce)’. 
— M i III i U. 
THE COCKCHAFER. 
Great injury is done to the roots of plants of all kinds 
by the grub or larva of the cockchafer, one of the 
largest of beetles, the noisy flight of which may now 
be heard in the twilight. The grub, says a contem- 
porary, spends several years in the soil, and, as it 
is a voracious feeder, it is frequently the unseen 
cause of much damage to crops, its ravages being 
nowhere more apparent than in young plantations of 
forest tree. In the extensive forest areas near Cracow 
in Polnnd, the mischief had progressed to such an ex- 
tent that the maintenance of nurseries was found to 
be impossible, the grubs invariably destroying the seed- 
lings. Dr. Laszezynski now reports, however, that the 
lupin has proved itself of great value as an iusectifuge 
plant. La.st year, after the usual planting of seeds 
of forest trees, one part of the area was sown with 
seeds of the yellow lupin and the young forest trees 
upou this portion were untouched by the grubs of 
the cockchafer, whilst on the rest of the area the 
seedlings were, as usual, destroyed. It would be 
desirable to test amongst field crops the value of a. 
remedy which has proved so efficacious iu the case 
of forest seedlings, and it is suggested that beetroot 
and other field crops which suffer from this pest 
might bo protected by the sowing of yellow lupia 
seed . — South of India Observer. 
[Many long years ago Liebig advised the coffee 
planters of Ceylon to grow lupin as a green crop 
amidst their ooffeo trees, to be turned into tho 
soil as manure. Had the planters heeded the 
advice it seems probable they would not have 
suffered as they did from grubs. Lupins as insecticides 
could well bo grown on our upland patanas.— 
Ed. J. H.] 
