6;8 
Supplement to the ''Tropical AgyicuUurist: 
[March 2, 1891. 
lip fast but not to any height. Evaporation is 
greater in a soil 11-11611 it is occupied by a crop 
than when bare, and the faster the growth the more 
evaporation will there be. This will be better 
understood when it is borne in mind that plant 
food is taken into the growing plant in a state 
of solution, and that it is the evaporation of the 
water in the higher parts of the plant and the 
consequent concentration or thickening of the 
crude sap that causes the less dense solution of 
water and mineral matter to pass upwards, by 
the law of diffusion. In bare land capillarity and 
therefore evaporation is favoured by a toler- 
ably dense condition of the soil. The operation of 
ploughing or otherwise breaking-up this soil 
tends to diminish the amount of evaporation by 
disturbing the conditions favourable to capillarity; 
evaporation is also diminished by the presence of 
stones on the surface of a soil, 
^ 
OCCASIONAL NOTES. 
A meeting, at which was jiresent Mr. Schwanii) 
M. P. for North Manchester, was held at the 
United Service Library on Thursday the 5 th Feb., 
with a view to considering the subject of 
Technical Education for Ceylon. Speeches were 
delivered by Mr. Schwann, the Assistant Colonial 
Secretary, and others. We had not the pleasure 
of listening to these speeches, not having had 
the honor of an invitation to be present on 
the occasion. We found on enquiry from one 
of the i^romoters of the meeting that it was to 
be of the nature of a “private conference,” 
though it subsequently turned out to be a very 
public affair, there being present newspaper re- 
porters and a number of students and others. 
The gentleman referred to was good enough to 
express a wish to see us at the meeting, but we 
did not feel justified in being present under the 
circumstances. It struck us ns rather peculiar, 
to say the least of it, that it should not have 
been thought proper by the conveners of the 
“ private conference ” to invite us, as solely re- 
presenting technical education in this city. In 
one way it was fortunate that we were not of 
the large assembly that met at the Fort Library 
on the 5 th, as we were thus enabled to dis- 
passionately review the speeches delivered on the 
occasion through the columns of the press, un- 
affected by the enthusiasm that prevailed at a 
meeting patronised by an M. P. and a Manchester 
man to boot. 
It is undoubtedly a great matter to hear a 
man of Mr. Schwann's experience of technical 
education, deliver himself on his pet subject ; 
hut it was a jiity that those who should have 
.seconded the efforts of the .spieaker by helping 
liim lo ap])ly flio general principles of technical 
education which he enunciated, to the special 
case of Cf^yhm, sliould have in Iheir enthusiasm 
forgolten flieir jiart, Tlie late IJircctor of Public 
J ii.'l ruction, however, as an ohl eilucational hand, 
Kpolie warily, while Mr. Fergii.son'.s jiractical 
h'lP’r wliicli was sent to (he meeting, was very 
o])])ortune. A nieiq ing such as thi.s, as giving a 
(illiji to the imhlie of Colombo, cannot but have 
a good effect; bid if, is (o be hoped that the 
comniiltee of the Association, which sjirung into 
v.xi,',teuc'j ut the meeting; tviU keep tlie lire of 
their zeal burning till they attain the object of 
their existence as such. 
The urgent necessity there is for constructing 
and repairing small village tanks has been much 
dwelt on of late. There are cases within our 
knowledge of cultivation being entirely at a 
standstill in places where it existed to a sati.s- 
factory extent, owing to the tanks in the 
neighbourhood supplying no appreciable quantity 
of water in dry sea,sons, if any at all. In some of 
these places it is practically beyond the power 
of the cultivator to get water from -wells owing 
to the abnormal de] 3 th to which he must ex- 
cavate before he can tap a water-bearing stratum. 
It is, however to be hoped, from the warmth 
with which the subject of irrigation is being 
thrashed out, and from the import of the visit 
of the Director of Public AVorks to India, that 
science will before long come to the aid of the 
inhabitants of these parts where nature is so 
hard a mistress. 
Common ginger (Zingiber officinale) says the 
Kew Bulletin, as is the case with so many cul- 
tivated plants, is unknown in the wild state, but 
there is little doubt that it is a native of Asia. It 
was known as a spice to the Greeks and Komans, 
who received it by way of the Eed Sea, and 
supposed it to be a production of Southern 
Arabia. It was very early introduced into the 
AVest Indies, from which it was shipped for com- 
mercial purposes to Europe as early as the 16 th 
century. The dried ginger met with in British 
commerce is almost entirely derived from the 
AVest Indies, Sierra Leone, Egypt and India. It 
is noteworthy that none is sent to the British 
Isles from China. 
The Kew Bulletin contains a note on Chinese 
ginger which is exported so largely, preserved in 
honey. For a long time there has been great 
doubt as to the plant which produced the large 
flat finger-like masses which were unlike any- 
thing piroduced by Zingiber officinale, the deter- 
ent cause in deciding this point being the diffi- 
culty in getting the plant to flower. It has been 
stated never to flower in China. Dr. Trimen, who 
received some roots from Kew, succeeded in grow- 
ing the plant, but could not induce it to put out 
an inflorescence ; and the same was the result at 
Kew. Now we hear from two quarters, viz., 
from Dominica and Hongkong, the Chinese ginger 
plant has flowered, which turns out to be Alpina 
Galanga, the greater galangal, a plant originally a 
native of Java and Sumatra and now much culti- 
vated in India for its rhizomes. 
The stem eelworm ('Tglenchus devastatriv) is 
a minute, transparent, white threadworm, at 
its full growth scarcely more than of an 
inch in length, and its greatest breadth may 
bo said in a general way to be sV of its length. 
Miss Ormerod recommends that, when a crop is 
affected by the eelworm, dressings of sulphate of 
potash, or mixtures of sulphate of potash and sul- 
])hate of ammonia, will be found successful in 
stoppling attaok, if apipilied as soon as the first 
