TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVI, Issue 13871, 24 October 1910, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Discorery and conquest History's have a curious way of Kitchen leaving behind them a Garden, trail of spring vegetables. As we eat our first new potatoes, of course we remember, with the ancient ballad-writer, that 'The famed Walter Raleigh, Queen Bess's own knight, Brought from Virginia the root of delight." His country, if ungrateful in much, at least showed a proper appreciation of what Crabbo referred to more prosaically as "those round balls of farinaceous food." Besant declares that upon tho potato depends the whole question of whether you lunch or dine. Without it you may achieve some lesser meals; but if you dine you have potatoes. And this vio-.v has so much national support that an essayist on the distribution of food-plants selects this as our typical belonging. "The vino followed tho Greeks, the wheat the Romans, the cotton tho Arabs, and the I-otato tho English." The Roman? albo brought the spring cabbage to British feasts and, better still, a Roman general having besieged a town and carried home its Asiatic spoil in the shape ot cherries, the invasion of England set us up tor good in this favourite fruit. Lydgate in a poem on London in 1-415, tells how, he hrani street calls ff "straberys ripe and cherryes on the ryse"—that is, cherries on twigs, a fasliion of s>ale which began early and lasted lo:ig. Broad beans were, first cultivated in England by the Romans, and sines then every English spring has scattered the scent of the blossom: but the kidney bean wjs unknown till the reign of Elizabeth, .it which time also green peas were brought from Hollandj and counted as

I "tit dainties for ladies, they came so 1 ffir, and cost so dear " Elizabethan enterprise, again, introduced the radish from China, parsley from Sardinia, and broroJi from Cyprus. But the historic lc-ek has a far longer pedigree, since it was in the year 640, when the Britons, under King Cadwallader, ga>ned their victory over thn .Saxons, that St. David contributed to this success not only by tho prayers hi: offered to Heaven, but by his iiuhrinub scheme for keeping comrades Known to each other by means of a leek carried in the cap. I/aeks evidently were ihe most profuse growth m some handy garden. There is another spriny vegetable which had its part in a. political war. When the Dutch expelled the Hovse of Orango, and stern burgomasters forbade tho cultivation either of orange lilies or rcarigolds, evo;i carrots w f ere not allowed in any martet '•on account of their aristocratical colour.' ISTien, later, tho banished

! .Stockholder returned, the hcmely carrot ! became as much tho fashiojiable vegetable as orsnges were ilia iavounte truit. I A sad story of the suicide of j Driven a medical man after th<> j to death of a patient was reI Death, lated at an inquest held at i Lewisham a few weeks ago. I Tho direct cause of tho tragedy was jthe unjust su-pician of having hastened the patient's death from interested j motives. Mr Alfred Prevott. a retiree stationer, aged 82, after taking some rhubarb at a meal, l«rame ill. and died jin three days from the effects of the ; vegetable and from old age. He was a i patient of Dr. do Quadros to whom J his wife was rotated. .Suspicion aro.se in the mind of another relative owing to the fact that T>r. do Qnndroi was mentioned in Mr Prevett's will, and this relative informed .Scotland Yard that the circumstances worn suspicions. A detective-inspector from Scotland Yard called on Dr. de Quadios. told him of the information received, ar.d asked him questions. No charge was made against the doctor, and at the inquest on Mr Prevett a •verdict of "death from natural causes"' v.as retiirncd. Dr. de Quadros. it :ipi pe-ars, was in a state of nervous t!?nJ sion owing to overwork, and he took tho visit of the detective so much to heart that, before this inquest was held, he poisoned himself during the ! temporary absence of a friend who ! -was sitting up all night with him. j When tho detective called on him and stated what had been told to Scotland Yard, tlie doctor declined to give a ccitifWte of death, and thus himself opened the door to enquiry by making an inquest necessary. At the inquest o;i Mr Prevett the coroner hnd tho sad duty of announcing the doctor's suici'Uf. Tho officer who represented the polico stated that he was satisfied the information given to Scotland Yard was incorrect. The name of tho informant was withheld, and the coroner conducting the enquiry commented in scathing terms on the contemptible action of the individual who made the allegations to Scotland Yard and then did not havo the pluck ;to come forward and make them in open Court. Dr. de Qundros had held appointments in London, Ir.dia, Egypt, West Africa, and Central Africa. Tho sad ending to an honourable career' is a striking examplo cf tho harm that may be caused by the ill-considered and hasty formulation of a serious accusation.

To an American, Henry Ploughing Caldwell, of SpartanWith bury, is attributed theDynamite, distinction of being tho

first farmer to plough bin land with dynamite. Experience convinced him that on clay soil the ordinary plough was not a success. Though it loosened the surface, it hardened the substrata, with the result that in very wet seasons the ploughed soil would float right away, leaving the land almost devoid of plant food and necessitating the use of expensive fertilisers. More satisfactory was the use of the subsoil plough, which penetrates bo about a foot from tbo surface, but the slight increase in crop production did not.justify the greater exertion on tho part of man and horse. An observant man. Mr Caldwell had noticed that where stumps had been pulled out, or where any excavation had been made' and filled, the soil grew bettor crops than that surrounding it. ' Moreover, he found by experienco that onco the clay, even at a great depth was disturbed, it would never pack to its original condition. So he decided on dynamite as the solution of his problem. "I began,"' he .says, ''by exploding a stick of dynamite in each of mv water-melon hills and the resulting increase, amounting to thirtythree per cent, of tho crop, allowed mo to pay for the dynamite and have an increased profit besides."' Then he used dynamite on his cotton fields. He charged two acres of it with seventyfive pounds of dynamite to the acre, placing the cartridges in rows about four and a half feet apart. Negroes in tho locality were intensely interested and gathered in large forces to see the firing. Neighbours were alarmed, and after removing their household effects sent tho sheriff round "to come to an agreement in regard to inevitable damages." Four rows were fired at a time, and the explosions came as fast ai a fireworks display. After it was all over, the ground, according to a writer in the "Technical World,' , looked like a huge colander set with innumerable holes the soil being broken up into unusually fine particles. The results in larger crops have been very satisfactory.