placed in this category. While it is certainly true that every part of the tree, even including the fruit until complete maturity is reached, abounds in a viscid milk easily obtainable by tapping, it is, however, extremely doubtful whether rubber of requisite quality and in quantities needed for commercial exploitation can be extracted. Like cur milkweed and osage-orange, this tree no doubt contains a rubber-like principle which will appear after a reasonable amount of coaxing and a considerable expenditure of time, but after all scarcely worth the search. Mr. R H. Biffin, who has examined the phenomena of coagulation in the latices of a number of plants, obtained the following results with that of the breadfruit. "When diluted and centrifugalized it separates readily, giving a creamy white layer which dries to a resinous mass somewhat resembling gutta-percha. At the ordinary temperature this is quite hard and brittle, but if the temperature is raised slightly it becomes plastic, and at the temperature of boiling water it is soft and excessively sticky. The substance is soluble in carbon bi-sulphide, and insoluble in water and alcohol." From this it becomes apparent that unless superior methods of extraction and treatment for its gum are found, the breadfruit will scarcely enter into competition with any of the commercial rubbers. Experiments recorded by Watt with the milk of the jak (4. intəgrifolia) were, however, more promising in that the rubber prepared from its gum was leathery, waterproof, and capable of removing pencil marks, thus fulfilling at least the requirement which gave rubber its name. The breadfruit trees throughout Porto Rico are scarred with machete marks made by the natives for the purpose of obtaining milk, which they boil with coconut oil to obtain the thick, gummy substance used in caulking canoes and rendering bottles water-tight; this is also used as a birdlime before it hardens. The milk is used as a medium for paint in the Pacific Islands, serving its purpose well, although for interiors it does not give as smooth a finish as paint prepared with oil. *Kew Bull. 140. pp. 177-181. August, 1898. (To be continued.) [Issued 16th June, 1904.] By T. J. HARRIS, late Agricultural Instructor, Hope Gardens. Most elementary school teachers in Jamaica are aware that a school garden is maintained primarily for the purpose of affording material for the lessons in nature study and elementary science given to the school children; few, however, have realized the importance of such work, even though they know that the prosperity of the country depends entirely upon the skill and energy evinced by the agriculturist and these again upon the amount of enlightened interest taken in the common phenomena of every day life both as regards plants and animals. It must be remembered by the teacher that the conditions that obtain in Jamaica are very different from those of Britain, America and the European continent, where. in the large towns, hundreds of boys and girls attend one large school, who are not expected to go to the land but are trained with a view to making useful men for the great factories and workshops, and thoroughly domesticated women for the myriads of little homes. It is the country lad who goes on to the land, who makes the most successful farmer. Compare his youthful experience with that of the town lad; the country boy on his journey to and from school is daily confronted with varying phenomena of bird, animal, plant and insect life, and on arrival home in the evening has accumu Îated numberless questions with which to bombard his parents; whe are invariably careful enough to answer the questions correctly and to encourage the lud to ask more. The poor town lad sees nothing of the beautiful and wonderful ob jects of nature, he sees nothing but huge factories and warehouses, bricks and mortar, pavements and traffic; little wonder that he becomes more and more a machine when later we find him carrying our his life's work amidst the deafening roar of machinery. It may be argued that the country-side boy of Jamaica has the same or equivalent advantageous surroundings as the northern boy; this is so to some extent, but he, as a rule, lacks the enlightened and sympathetic parents and the daily sight of neatly laid out gardens and plantations. Now cannot the teacher fill this crying want? How many are ready, willing, anxious to minister to the spiritual needs of the community; why not to the material? nay, this also is spiritual! No one is in closer touch with God's work than the agriculturist, our great naturalists were and are most godly men, and a late Archbishop of Canterbury was a profound student of Nature. The first work to be undertaken by the elementary school teacher is to lay out a garden in such a way as to permit of all the crops planted therein being neatly arranged in straight lines; to effect this a regular systematic plan should be followed; accompanying this note is a plan of a quarter of an acre garden suitable for a school in which it will be seen that the whole garden is an exact rectangle with an intersecting main path down the centre and side paths leading from it to the garden fence to permit of inspection without trampling on the plots. The width of the main path is 6 ft., of the side paths 3 ft., and the five sections (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), 24 ft. wide each (see dotted lines); section No. 6 is 31 ft. wide, making each side 1514 ft. long; the width of the garden therefore, being 72 ft., will make:-151 × 72′ =10,890 sq. ft. 1,210 sq yds. 1 quarter of an acre. For a smaller garden, say one-half the size, (4th acre), the same plan may be used, but the scale of course, must be changed, Having lined out the plots and paths, the temporary pegs which mark the sections should be replaced with permanent ones of hard wood to serve as points from which to measure when lining out for planting the various crops; the surface scil of the paths should then be removed to the depth of 4 to 6 inches and scattered over the adjacent plots, stones or shells laid along the edge of the plots, and the path filled with gravel or sand. It is highly important that the children be allowed to assist in the laying out of the paths and plots, and if the teacher is careful to get correct right-angles and parallels and exact measurements, he will not fail to enlist the interest of the children. The work of planting may now commence, each section to be taken separately, beginning, say, with No. 6; reference to the plan will show this to contain bananas interplanted with cocoa, and plantains with coffee; the bananas are 12ft. apart and the plantains 8ft. The cocoa and coffee trees are not planted until the bananas and plantains are large enough to give sufficient shade. The lining out should be done as carefully as possible; a glance at the plan will suggest the method to be employed. The citrus section may be taken next, planting corn, when the proper season arrives, along the lines marked. The nursery will consist of a small seed and nursery bed, and later two rows of stocks set out for budding upon. A careful study of the plan will render instructions as to the remaining sections superfluous; it must be understood, however, that this plan is more sugestive thin imperative; numberless difficulties will beset the teacher, but it is felt that these brief instructions will be found useful when the work is taken up in real earnest. |