JVLY 2, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



65 



My letter has reached a length much greater than 

 I iuteuded and I fear will weary your readers long 

 before they ever get to the end of it, i. e. , if they 

 ever try to get so far. My only excuse must be that 

 you seldom get news from this out-of-the-world plice 

 and therefore what we are doing, how cultivations 

 are progressing, &o., mny possibly interest some of your 

 numerous readers. 



If you have any copies of "Tea Cultivation in South 

 India and Ceylon by a Neilghei-ry Tea Planter" uith 

 diagrams please forward me one. I have one of th 

 original issue withoid diagrams.* — I am, dear sirs, e 

 your.s truly, A. J. S. 



CEYLON, CHILE AND CALIFORNIA. 

 Edinburgh, 30th May, 1883. 

 Dear Sir, — In order to show you that Ceylon Is 

 not the only country suffering from decay of its chief 

 product and exhaustion of soil, I enclose an ex- 

 tract from a private letter from my brother in S. 

 America, which may be of interest to you. — Yours 

 truly, P. D. MILLIK. 



" Coquimbo, Chile, 14th April 1883. 



" No doubt, frequent crops wear out plants and 

 soil, and heavy manuring can only put off the evil 

 day, as disease then takes the place of exhaustion. 



" Here, hundreds of thousands of acres of heavily 

 cropped laud (wheat and lucerne) are now nearly 

 useless, and in California it is much the same, the 

 only remedy is a return to a state of nature and 

 to original condition for an unlimited period. 



" V\ e read in the Bible of fat lands being turned 

 to bai-renness : a state of things which the children 

 of Israel probably attributed to divine agency of a 

 direct kind, but which was due to the most simple 

 and natural cause, namely, over-cultivation, drought, 

 caused or incre^ised by forest clearing, wars. etc. 



"The races of Peru were as industrious cultivators 

 of every available spot of ground as are the Chinese, 

 but since their subjugation by the gold-hunting 

 Spaniards, everything seemed to grow barren. 



"Later on, the Spaniards, for their own sakes, were 

 compelled to turnagriculturist-^, liut have never achieved, 

 what the original race did in the way of high 

 cultivation and irrigation. 



" Guano was used by the former, centuries before it 

 was known to be of any use by Km-opeans : indeed, 

 whatever vague ideas ab-ut its virtues the Spaniards 

 may have had, it only dawned upon European agri- 

 culturists that it was valuable about 1830. 



" Planters are quite right in looking upon the decline 

 of cofi'ee growing as inevit djle, and happy will those 

 be wliose ' new products ' come in as coffee goes 

 out. T. J. W. Millie." 



PLANTING NOTES AND QUERIES. 



North Mysore, 6th June 1883. 

 Sir, — Permit a few of the above from a novice : — 

 Clearing iant?.— What is the best «ay to get rid of 

 bamboos in quantity? Apparently there are two— (1) 

 clean burning, which als" destroys suitable shade trees; 

 (2) lopping, piling and burning, which is expensive. Evid- 

 ence as to treatment in the Bamboo (Coorg) district is con- 

 fiieling. Possibly, as a rule, bamboos and good shadetrees 

 are not fouud together. [This is a query for Indian 

 planters to answer. lu Ceyiou we have not much 

 bamboo land and we do tmt leave shade trees. — Ed.] 



The Weed Question.— M.v.Qh food for thought has been 

 presented in your valuable pages but it seems to be 

 stil an open qui-stton whether it is better (1) to take 



* The diagi-ams were never engraved, imfortimately ; 

 but a new edition of Mr. Brace's Essay, with special in- 

 formation regarding tea planting in Ceylon, may yet be 

 ssued. — Ed. 

 9 



them away altogether, (2) to dig them into the sod, or 

 (3) to pull up or cut and leave on su if ace. Here the 

 second mode of treatment finds favor, and I have never 

 heard of anvone adopting the first. [When ageratum 

 or other bad weeds have b'en allowed to seed, they cer- 

 tainly ought to be burnt. In all other cases, surely the 

 best plan is to bury in the soil, adding some lime. — Ed.] 



Ceard Rubber.— \ should be thankful for advice as to 

 treatment here. Should the seed be filed, soaked, 

 pricked out into nursery at beginning of June, and 

 planted out in field two or three weeks later ? Treated 

 so, would i^ not get far too much ram, and be likely to 

 rot ? Perhap.^ it would be better not to put it in nurse- 

 ry till August, or would it do to put unfiled seed 

 straight out into the field at the beginning of June? 

 What is now oousideted the right number to an nc.e, 

 and what are the latest experieuC'S as to probable 

 yield per tree, and ideas as to soil ? The bare rock 

 theory is, I fancy, exploded. Digging after planting is 

 presumably not necessary. [Those only who have had 

 experience can reply. The question is elastic. — Ed.] 



Twin Cro/)^'.— Where conditions for both are favor- 

 able, will it pay better in the long run to grow two 

 products on same ground rather than one? I should say 

 not, except, perhaps, in the case of cinchona amongst 

 coffee, if former is as good shade as the best class of 

 jungle trees. [Two strings better than one. — Ed.C.O ] 



The Future of C'o/ee.— Brokers at home say that 

 coffee goes in cycles of 15 years, and that we were lately 

 at the bottom of one ; prices, however, doubtless depend 

 chiefly on Brazil and Brazil, on the labor question, and 

 if planters there succeed in establishing free foreign 

 labor, they may become permanently lower than they 

 have ever been. [Coffee prophets only can reply.— Ed ] 



This i>(.rf)-io?.— European planters a.-e slowly increas- 

 ing in numbers. Why don't more come, :ind bring 

 their wives and daughters ? Ladies are very scarce ; 

 also railways, but otherwise the conditions of life are 

 favorable, and planters generally are hopeful ae to 

 prospects of cofiee. Cannon's " Mysore" is well known, 

 and there are 01 her guns of less calibre. [The wiiler can 

 surely answer his own query in this case and tell us 

 about the Mysore railway,]— Yours truly, R I. D. 



P S. — 1 see that Dr. Irimen says, that cinci.ona 

 Lcdgeriana does not prosper at high elevations. VVonld 

 3,000 feet be high enough? [We have seen Ledgtnana 

 flourishing at 4,. 500 feet. V/ith free soil and f;nod 

 shelter we shiuld thin'k they would do well at 5,0OU 

 feet. But probably 3,000 feet constitute a good 

 elevation. — Ed.] 



JAMAICA CINCHONA BARKS: A CORRECTION: 

 BotanioGardeu, Hakgala, Nuwara Eliya, 12th June 1S83, 



Dear Sir,— I beg to inform you that the Cinchona 

 Calisaya mentioned in Dr. Paul's i\A analysis of Jamaica 

 cinchona barks (sent to him by ,Mr Thomson in 1878) 

 which is iniblished on page 30 was not cfdifaya at all, 

 but that which is now known as the hybrid, cinchona 

 robunia iilabra.— I a.m, dear sir, your obedient servant, 



W. NOCK. 



[Dr. Paul as editor of the Ph<irmoceuttc<d Journu'> 

 which is scut us in exchange, will no doubt lake a notv 

 of the above. For the proper nomenclature of the 

 cinchonas as well as for a good deal else, it is evident 

 that our friends in the West must look to Ceylon.— lie.] 



THK CINCHONA LEDGERIANA CONTROVERSY: 

 A CORRECTION. 



13th Juno 1883. 

 Dear Sir,— There is a slight inaccuracy in your articl • 

 onthecinclionacoi.t oversy (page 41) which it would be 

 well to correct. The tree selected by Dr. Irimen here 

 for specimens was not the figured ne, but one ot nmilar 

 type, and it an ilyzed 11 '29 sulph.ie of quinine --\our^ 

 faithfully, THOS. ^0R1H CHfilSTlE, 



