February i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



601 



BKEAKFAST BEVERAGES. 



Each of our commoner breakfast beverages, namely tea, 

 coffee, and cocoa, present sundry relative advantages and 

 disadvantages, which have been well estabUshed by scientific 

 experiments and general experience, and which are qualities 

 that sometimes assume a special importance in certain con- 

 ditions of health, habit, occupation, climate, and disease. 

 Warm infusion of tea has been proved to have a marked 

 stimulant and restorative action on the brain and nervous 

 system, and this etfect is not followed by any secondary 

 depression. It further increases the actiou of the skin, 

 and raises the number of the pulse, while it has a little 

 effect upon m-ination, excepting simply as a watery dim'etic. 

 It tends to lessen the action of the bowels. Dr. Parkes 

 found that tea is most useful as an article of diet for soldiers. 

 The hot infusion is a patent protective against extremes both 

 heat and cold: and Sir Kanald Martin proved it to be partic- 

 ularly valuable in great fatigue, especially in hot climates. 

 Coffee, like tea, when used as an article of diet, especially 

 affects the nervous system. It is a brain-and-nerve stimulant; 

 in very large dose it produces tremors. It increases the 

 action of the skin, and it appears to have a special power 

 in augmenting the urinary water. It increases both the 

 force and frequency of the pulse. Unlike tea, it tends to 

 inciease the action of the bowels. Coffee has been proved 

 to be an important article in a soldier's dietary, as a stimul- 

 ant and restorative. Like tea, it acts as a nerve-excitant, 

 without producing subsetiueut depression. It is serviceable 

 against excessive variations of cold and heat, and its efficacy 

 in these respects has been established in antartic expeditions 

 as well as in India and other hot climates. Dr. Parkes 

 pointed out that cotfee has a special recommendation in its 

 protective influence against malaria. While admitting that 

 the evidence on this point was not strong, he held it to be 

 sufficient to authorise the large use of coffee in malarious 

 districts. Coffee should be used as an infusion. If coffee be 

 boiled, its delicate aroma is dissipated. The Iheobromin of 

 cocoa is, chemically, identical with the thein of tea, and the 

 caffein of coffee. While tea and cocoa are comparatively 

 valueless as true foods, cocao, by reason of the large quantity 

 of fatty and albuminoid substances it contains, is very 

 nourishing, and is of high dietetic value as a tissue-forming 

 food. Compared with tea and coffee, it is a food rather than 

 a stimulant, being akin to milk in its composition and place 

 in the diet-scale. It is useful to sustain the weakly, and to 

 support the strong in great exertion, as a readily assimilable 

 and general form of nourishment — British Medical Journal. 



LLBERIAN COFFEE AND CACAO. 



(Report from the Kuruiiegtda JJistrict, Ceylon.) 

 It is very interestmg and satisfactory to notice how new 

 products are gradually occupying their allotted positions in 

 the lowcountry. In the Kui-nuegala district, in most places, 

 Liberian coffee appears to have been a success, possibly not 

 quite up to exp ctations; but then take a retrospective view 

 of what these expectations were, and it will be seen that 

 such prospects were not, as a ride, realized in the palmiest 

 days of coffee cultivation. Suffice it to say, that it pays 

 aud that the past season has been done in which leaf-disease 

 has not acted so prominent a part as preriously. which 

 makes the Liberian coffee planter more hopeful than he 

 was. The average crop of Liberian Coffee on full bearing 

 trees cannot, thioughout the district, have been less than 

 5 cwt. the acre, which, at R37 is El.-S-S, leaWng a profit of 

 RIOO. This must be considerably over the average of profits 

 of most cultivated products. Were it not for the bugbear 

 leaf-disease, I conclude there are many who would prefer 

 Liberian coffee to cocoa in this district, as it is certainly a 

 hardier and less fastidious plant, growing almost as well 

 upon ridges as in raiines, which cocoa will not do; nor 

 will it fully thrive, except in sheltered hollows and valleys. 



Cocoa upon many places is now bearing its first ap- 

 preciable crop, and has assumed full possession of the land 

 — a sea of green with pendant crimson and orange pods, 

 beneath a checjuered shade of jack aud other trees. No 

 cultivation has a grander appearance, and I should think 

 none is more valuable. With care and attention it has the 

 name of being not only a long liver, but a tree which for 

 a life-time repays its owner a very high return for money 

 invested. It is, however, not the most certain of cultivations. 

 I doubt if it can lie profitably grown over a fourth of the 

 77 



area upon which it has been planted. There are spots upon 

 cocoa estates where it would seem every enemy of the 

 plant congregates; as though one having assailed the un- 

 fortunate plant, others must perforce foUow suit, and, if 

 possible, by their joint efforts exterminate it utterly. Clo.'^e 

 at hand are other cocoa estates without a visible enemy 

 upon them. This to my mind rather goes to prove that 

 so-called enemies of plants, like wolves and other creatures 

 in the animal world, prefer what they attack to be already 

 the victim of misfortune. With the wolf this is to be 

 understood, but with caterpillars, beetles, aphides and sap- 

 suckers generally, it is more difficult to discover their object. 

 The only one which occurs to me is the tendency to decom- 

 position in the sap; the first change of which would possibly 

 be the conversion of its starchy ingredients into sugar, aud 

 most of these small pests have a great partiality of any- 

 thing sweet. — "Local" Times. 



CULTIVATION OF THE OR.ANGE TREE IN SPAIN. 



The United States Consular Agent, at Gras, writting on 

 the propagation and cultivation of the orange tree in Spain, 

 says that it does not thrive in the open air, except above 

 43° latitude, and then only in sheltered spots, ■\\hen the 

 average temperature reaches from 15 ° to lb ° Rt-aumm-, 

 the apparent vegetation of the orange tree commences, 

 which, as a rule, takes place in the month of March. The 

 blossoming requires a mean temperature of IS ° , the first 

 flowers appearing in April, and frequently continuing through- 

 out the whole of May. The blossoms are found on the 

 secondary branches, but principally on the tertiary ones, 

 or, in general, those formed during the previous year ; but 

 this is not an invariable ride. The soUs in which the orange 

 tree thrives well are of very distinct compositions, as there 

 are as many orangeries in Spain on sandy as on clayey 

 soils. Great attention is generally paid by the cultivatois 

 not only to the surface but also to the subsoil, as there are 

 frequently parts where the soil is loose and of good quality 

 on the surface, but very compact and bail beneath, or vice 

 versa. Orange trees may be propagated either from seed 

 or from cuttings ; the former system perpetuates the species 

 and creates new descriptions, afterwards improvetl by cultiv- 

 ation. The second method, either from shoots, cuttings, or 

 grafting, continues the race, and, at the same time acceleiates 

 the fruitage, which is always later with the trees produced 

 by the first-named system; but, in exchange, the trees raised 

 from seed are more robust, and live to a much greater age. 

 In cultivating plants from the seed, attention must be paid 

 to the soil, in order that it may be of good ([uality, and free 

 from creeping herbs or seed, and it must be in a good 

 situation so as to receive the sun in all parts, besides which 

 it must have an abundance of water for irrigation. All 

 seeds are sown in flat plots, and if delicate, the soil is lightly 

 manured, and at the same time excavated and loosened, 

 so as to give the plant greater freedom for growing. The 

 plots, when prepared, are opened out in parallel rows of 

 about foiu- inches deep, and about one foot apart from each 

 other. To obtain the quantity of seed required for sowing, 

 when the proper time arrives, the general method is to 

 divide the orange with a knife, taking care not to cut it so 

 deeply as to touch the seeds, or to in any way injure them. 

 These are then picked out, and placed in the shade to dry, 

 after which they are preserved either in paper packets or 

 earthenware pots in a dry place. "Wht-n the seed is once 

 obtained, and not required for use for a certain time, it 

 is placed in layers of sand, to prevei.t it becoming too 

 dry or opening. When the time has a i rived for the seed 

 to be sown, the soil is carefully prepared. Iieing well watered 

 and dug up. If the earth is compact and formed of har<l 

 lumps, these are broken up and smoked, and made up in 

 honniifvtrosy which are heaps of dry vegetaijle refuse, covered 

 over with earth, hax-ing a small opening nrar the ground, in 

 which is introduced a wisp of straw. Va setting fire to 

 the straw, the whole mass gi adually consumes itself, forming 

 a small heap of vegetable ashes and earth. These ashes 

 are equally distributed over the surface of the soil, anti 

 this is immediately afterwards manured. The groimd has 

 to be divided in long and narrow plots, having small irrigat- 

 ing canals between each, which must be sufficiently deep 

 so as not to allow the water to reach the superficies of the 

 rows. The seed is soaked in water for two days, and after- 

 wards thickly sown. The young plants are from four to 



