730 
[yVpiur.  1,  18D(3 
Supplement  to  the  “ Tropical  AgricuUnrisl!'' 
process  of  digestion  comparable  in  its  Imoad  lines 
to  the  process  whicli  awaits  them  after  tliey  are 
eaten  by  an  animal.  In  other  words,  a plant  wlien 
living  on  its  reserve  materials  is  almost  strictly 
comparable  to  an  herbivorous  animal,  both  as  re- 
gards the  sub.stance  of  its  food  and  its  manner  of 
making  it  avtailable  for  nutrition. 
The  importance  of  the  reserve  materials  of  plants 
is  therefore  two-fold.  In  the  first  place  it  is  at 
their  expense  that  many  of  our  agricultural  j)lants 
fulfil  their  ultimate  duty  of  preparing  flowers, 
fruits,  and  seeds.  If  we  consider  the  case  of  a 
carrot,  we  find  that  it  does  not  enter  upon  this 
task  during  the  first  year  of  its  life.  Its  construc- 
tive processes  are  then  at  their  best,  and  a large 
amount  of  reserve  material  is  provided  by  its 
leaves  and  stored  away  in  its  bulky  fleshy  root. 
During  the  second  year,  the  constructive  activity 
is  much  less;  it  developes  however  its  fruit  and 
seeds,  exhausting  as  it  does  so  the  store  which  the 
root  then  contains,  The  same  process  is  aeen, 
though  in  a slightly  different  way,  in  tlie  develop- 
ment of  the  seed  itself.  Though  the  parent  plant 
often  does  not  survive  the  production  of  seeds,  it 
finishes  its  own  life  work  by  providing  its  young 
embryo  or  embryos  with  a store  of  nutritive  mate- 
rial, which  enables  it  or  them  to  make  a start  on 
their  own  account ; depositing  this  either  in  the 
embryo  itself,  as  in  the  pea  or  bean  or  in  its  imme- 
diately surrounding  tissue,  the  endosperm,  as  in  the 
buckwheat,  oat,  carrot,  or  other  similarly  con- 
structed seed. 
In  the  second  place  these  reserve  materials  are 
of  the  utmost  importance,  not  so  much  to  the 
plant  as  to  its  cultivator,  constituting  as  they  do 
the  valuable  part  of  most  of  our  Iiarvested  crops, 
providing  us  with  the  material  on  which  animal 
life  is  immediately  dependent.  Thus  the  seeds  of 
cereals,  the  tubers  of  potatoes  and  artichokes,  the 
roots  of  beat,  carrots,  turnips,  &e.,  the  inflores- 
cences of  cauliflowers,  the  bulbs  of  onions,  &c.,  are 
of  value  commercially  according  to  the  nature  of 
the  materials  the  plants  have  deposited  in  them 
and  the  condition  in  which  they  exist  when  we  call 
the  particular  member  of  the  plant  ripe. 
A further  division  of  the  food  materials  of  the 
plant  still  may  be  made.  Tlie  reserve  materials 
we  have  seen  may  be  destined  for  almost  imme- 
diate use,  or  may  be  intended  to  be  deposited  for 
months  or  even  years  in  some  special  receptacle 
such  as  root,  stem  or  seed.  In  the  first  case  the 
form  they  take  is  not  quite  so  complex  as  in  the 
second ; there  is  no  need  for  the  preparation  of 
such  an  elaborate  product.  We  get  thus  a certain 
class  of  material  which  is  intended  for  circulation 
or  short  transport ; these  may  bo  considered  as 
circulating  reserves,  drawn  upon  immediately  by 
tbe  growing  cells,  situated  perhapa  not  far  from 
the  seat  of  original  formation.  These  usually  are 
soluble  products,  and  can  only  be  detected  in  the 
fluid  or  sap  which  passes  from  cell  to  cell.  As, 
however,  the  local,  like  the  general,  demand  varies 
much  in  amount  from  time  to  time,  we  find  a 
sudden  cessation  or  diminution  of  it  marked  by 
temporary  depo.«its,  small  in  quantity,  which  usu- 
ally remain  a very  short  time  where  they  are  laid 
down  In  the  young  shoots,  and  even  in  the  leaves 
themselves,  we  frecpienl  ly,  if  not  generally,  find 
uantities  of  starch  grains  present  in  definite  cells 
or  layers  of  cells.  Sometimes  these  arc  i)rcsont, 
metimos  they  are  not : in  the  leaves,  for  instance, 
after  a bright  day,  we  find  a quantity  of  starch, 
which,  however,  disappears  during  the  succeeding 
night.  This  store  of  starch  may  be  for  the  use  of 
the  leaf  tissue  should  the  process  of  manufacture 
be  checked  by  the  failure  of  sunlight,  or  it  may 
be  transported  to  more  permanent  reservoirs,  to  be 
again  stored  up. 
This  store  of  circulating  material  can  thus  be 
distinguished  from  the  more  permanent  store 
which  we  generally  associate  with  the  term  reserve 
material,  and  which  we  have  seen  is  deposited  in 
parts  where  active  metabolism  is  not  the  leading 
feature  of  the  tissue. 
lUIEA  FIBRE. 
We  take  the  following  account,  which  gives 
some  interesting  details  of  rhea  cultivation,  from 
the  Suyar  Journal.  The  information  that  the 
leaves  of  the  ramie  plant  are  very  nutritious  fodder 
and  are  eagerly  eaten  by  cattle,  is  new  to  us.  In 
spite  of  the  facilities  afforded  for  procuring  cuttings 
from  the  trees  (imported  as  plants  from  Calcutta) 
established  at  the  School  of  Agriculture,  and  the 
facilities  to  locally  dispose  of  the  raw  dried  bark, 
no  one  has  been  enterprising  enough  to  give  rhea 
a fair  trial  in  the  island  : — 
We  have  to  thank  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture for  the  following  letter  received  by  the  Secre- 
tary to  the  Queensland  Agent-General,  from  the 
Managing  Director  of  the  Boyle  Fibre  Syndicate, 
2,  Victoria  Mansions,  Westminster,  Loudon: — ■ 
There  is  no  difficulty  in  either  the  decortication 
or  degumming  of  the  ramie  plant,  and  if  the 
farmers  can  be  induced  to  grow  it,  a good  paying 
profit  per  acre  can  be  obtained.  In  the  Straits 
Settlements,  where  there  is  no  winter,  and  scarcely 
any  variation  of  temperature  during  the  year, 
daily  cuttings  of  the  stems  can  be  made,  and  the 
machinery  consequently  kept  at  work  during  the 
whole  year  ; 1503  lb.  of  sticks  will  produce  12  lb.  of 
white  degummed  filasse  ; this  is  the  daily  product 
of  one  acre  of  land,  say  1^  tons  per  year,  reckoning 
303  working  days.  1 am  not  aware  whether 
or  not  there  is  any  part  of  Queensland  where 
ramie  can  be  grown  under  climatic  sue  i condi- 
tions as  in  the  Straits.  The  climate  there  is  a 
moist  one,  with  an  average  rainfall  of  120  in,  but  at 
all  events  on  irrigated  land  1:^  to  U tons  can  be 
relied  upon  if  the  soil  is  good.  The  ramie  plant, 
as  you  are  aware,  is  perennial,  and  requires  no 
cultivation,  and  after  the  plant  has  reached  3 ft  no 
weeding  is  necessary  ; it  destroys  every  other 
weed,  and  all  the  farmer  has  to  do  is  tc  cut  the 
stems  as  tliey  mature  ; the  root  will  last  20  to  30 
years  and  only  requires  thinning.  The  surplus 
plant  can  bo  u.:ed  for  extending  the  plantation  or 
sold  to  other  planters.  A properly  grown  stem 
without  leaves  will  weigh  about  4oz,  so  that  the 
daily  product  of  one  acre  will  be  about  1,200 
stems.  One  man  could  therefore  look  after  five 
acres  working  10  hours  per  day,  this  would  mean 
cutting  10  stems  per  minute,  but  kanaka  labor 
would  probably  produce  less.  The  labor  of  cut- 
ting is  very  suitable  for  boys  and  women,  as  it 
is  light. 
Twenty-five  acres  would  bring  a return  of  about 
Cl-o  per  week  to  the  farmer,  out  of  which  he 
would  have  to  pay  wages  and  carriage  of  the  stems 
to  the  mill.  The  steins  to  be  delivered  every  ilay 
from  a 25-acre  patch  would  weigh  aj)proximatoly 
about  3t  t ms,  without  loaves,  so  that  it  is  nooes- 
