Colchicine
Media
Part of The American Chamber of Commerce Journal
- Title
- Colchicine
- Language
- English
- Source
- The American Chamber of Commerce Journal Volume XVIII (No. 11) November 1938
- Year
- 1938
- Rights
-
- Fulltext
- 60 THE AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE JOURNAL. November. 1938 RAIL COMMODITY MOVEMENTS By LEON M. LAZAGA Traffic Manager, Manila Railroad Company FREIGHT REVENUE CAR LOADING I NUMBER OF 1 FREIGHT COMMODITIES FREIGHT CAI: TONNAGE | 1938' _ 1937 | The volume of commodities received in Manila during the month of October 1938, via the Manila Railroad Company are as follows: Rice, cavanes .................. 160,600 Sugar, piculs ................. 60,704 Copra, piculs ................ 197,696 Desiccated Coconuts, cases . 39,552 Tobacco, bales ................. 552 Lumber, board feet ............. 998,287 Timber, kilos ................ 1,600,000 Rice .............................. I'alay ............................ Sugar Cane .............. Copra ............................ Coconuts ...................... Molasses ...................... Hemp ............................ Tobacco ........................ Livestock .................... Mineral Products .. . Lumber and Timber. . Other Forest Products Manufactures ............ All Others including _L.C.L. ........... SUMMARY The freight revenue car loading statistics for four weeks end ing October 22, 1938, as compared with the same period of 1937 are given (right) : TOTAL ~777. ■... NOTE—Figures in parenthesis indicate decrease. COLCHICINE You can tinker with the chromosomes of a turnip and make it grow into a giant turnip, whose seeds in turn will grow into other giant turnips by perfectly na tural division of their chromosomes. This is stated as fact by Dr. Louis Berman in New Crea tions in Human Beings, a Doubleday Do ran book quoted in the October Magazine Digest. Now if it is a fact, to the farmer it is the greatest fact ever discovered. We therefore quote in full: “The action of colchicine, a substance isolated from the bulbs of the autumn crocus, is most interesting. If a solution of it is injected into a plant, or simply sprayed on it with an atomizer, the leaves and flowers thus drugged grow peculiar ly, folding and wrinkling because they grow faster than their adjoining parts. The seeds of these plants tend to generate giant specimens which are much bigger than their ancestral parents and breed true to their giantism (italics ours). When the colchicine is next ap plied to these giant specimens, an additional acceleration of growth is obtained, producing another and larger variety of increase in size, doubling and redoubling. “Such plants as alfalfa, clover, onions, radishes, to bacco, nasturtium and foxglove have been so treated and changed. This strange effect of colchicine is due to the doubling of the number of chromosomes in the reproduc tive cells. It has long been known that when the num ber of chromosomes in these cells doubles, as happens in their spontaneous division before maturation, they may occasionally stay doubled, instead of losing one half their number by extrusion. The result ing specimens were usually found to be giants. Colchicine makes it possible to produce these freaks regularly. More over, they reproduce themselves regularly, so that they are no longer oddities, but provide a new way of manufacturing breeds of vegetables and flowers, perhaps grains and trees, like nothing man has ever seen. This method is not at present applicable to the human species, and no one would dare apply it, because he would not know what might be produced in the way of mons trosity or anomaly in consequence.” (Dr. Berman’s last sentence in this paragraph has no connection with his subject here, plants, and connects only with the ti tle to his book. Our readers should omit it). L BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL DIRECTORY fr ® rV CHINA BANKING CORPORATION MANILA, P. I. Domestic and Foreign Banking of Every Description P. O. Box 1394 Telephone 2-20-70 J. A. STIVER Attorney-At-Law—Notary Public Certified Public Accountant Administration of Estates Receiverships Investments Collections Income Tax 121 Real, Intramuros Manila, P. I. /A' RESPONDING TO ADVERTISEMENTS PLEASE MENTION Illi' AMERICAN Cl! AM HER OE COMMERCE JOURNAL