September i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURISt. 



167 



TEA, SILK, AND CINCHONA FARMING IN 

 NEAV ZEALAND. 



To THE Editor of " The Colonies and India." 

 Sir,— I have ranch pleasure m communicating some ex- 

 tracts f i-om the letter of au Indian chinchona planter sent 

 me by last mail irom New Zealand. This ceutleman has 

 gained his experience at Coor^' in Southern India, both arnouR 

 the hills, where the rainfall is 300 inches per annum, and 

 in the bamboo district, where the more moderate quantity 

 is 80 inches; and his carefuUy-formed opinion is that in the 

 North Island of New Zealand is to be found plenty of land 

 suitable, as regards climate and soil, for the remunerative 

 cultivation of all three products forming? the heading of this 

 letter. He says: " I have been in charge until a recent date 

 of the larKest chinchona nurseries in CoorR, but was obliged 

 to leave India on account of the health of my wife and fa- 

 mily. I have no desire to return to luda. as I think there 

 13 a gre;it future in store for the North Island in tropical 

 and semi-tropical agriculture, if the Government will en- 

 courage the necessary experiments, in granting land for nurse- 

 ries, and in supplying labour; the products could soon be 

 made to attract capital, and would soon bring a large extent 

 of country into profitable use. . . . Some notes on plants 

 and seedlings may not be out of place here. In May 1882 

 an acre of land haviugbeen cleared of timber, a large thatched 

 shed was erected in which 5 lbs. of succirubra seed were so^vn, 

 producing 2iX),000 seedlings in August fit for transplanting 

 outside, and valued at S rs. per 1,000. About 15,(W of the 

 finest were pricked out and sold afterwards for 20 rs. per 

 1,000, When the seed sheds were empty tl e nursery was ex- 

 tended and other sheds erected, under which 13 lbs. of 

 Siiccirubra were scattered, yielding 400,000 seedlings. la Janu- 

 ary last yOO.OOO of these were transplanted and 100,000 sold at 

 8 rs. per 1,000, those transplanted being from 4 to G inches 

 in height, and will be worth 25 rs. per 1,000 in June next 

 (the present month). 



I havel'Uilt two propagating houses with forcing flues, and 

 in these scattered some of the finer seeds from trees yielding 

 a larger percentage of quinine. One pound of calisai/a seed 

 produced 150,'XH) seedlings which sold for 50 rs per 1.000 when 

 2 inches high. I also raised in the house, fi'om 4 oz. of the 

 celebrated Javalcdgf-'riana, about 15,000 seedlings which brought 

 4 annas a plant. This seed came from trees yielding from 

 G to it per cent, of quinine. During the jjresent year I have 

 cleared other four acres of laurl, built extensive seed sheds, 

 and ij'anted four vavielies of chinchona— namely, calisni/a, 2 

 lb.; coudtimcnia, 1 lb.; Tobxsta, 4 OZ. ; and oj/icinalts, 2 lb.; 

 most of which germinated in fifteen days. It is worthy of 

 note that tea and silk could bf grown under the same manage- 

 ment and conditions in the north of New Zealand, and those 

 three products should prove a very valuable investment. 



These quotations may be deserving of some attention as 

 emanating from a skilled Indian planter of ten years' ex- 

 perience, and as confirming the widely-spread belief that north- 

 ern New Zealand is well suited tor the cultivation of several 

 tropical and semitropical products, if only the Government 

 will jiidxioLisly loosen for a time the colonial purse strings. 

 That the apparently uncongenial task of subsidising such 

 industries must be "faced sooner or later there need be little 

 doubt, as the capital of Kur pe, so much of which New Zea- 

 land has already absorbed, ('an sc'rccly be expected to fl .w 

 always in one direction. Considering that this is the fourth 

 year of recent endeavours to obtain official aid and symi^athy 

 for the promotinn of tea and silk farming without satisfac- 

 tion, many i^eoplc at Home, as well as on the spot, arc 

 beginning to doubt the sincerity of the many favourable pro- 

 testation on the subject which have issued from the Kxecut- 

 ive at Wellington. The opinion has been expressed in nu- 

 merous iuotances on both sides of the t^quator that these in- 

 dustries, with a little Government aspistanceat first in money 

 or in kind, may be i)rofitably conducted, and be rendered 

 a source of -jreat wealth to the Colony. It is everywhere 

 known that Government aid has been given or offered to the 

 promoters of the wnllen, chemical, metal, .sugar and 

 other useful and imjoitant trades; peoi>le are not ignorant 

 of the fact that distillers were, under a former Administra- 

 tion, bonased to commence the manufacture of whisky and 

 afterwariis prfmiumed to give it up,— these and other merits 

 and eccentricities of the Executive are perfectly well known ; 

 it is therefore surprising that much a.-stonishment should 

 now continually be expressed that the advocntpM of the 

 speci a ly useful, %'aluable and uondeletcriouH industries of 

 combined tea growing and silk preparation should alone be 

 left out in the cold with nothing offered but the taunt of 

 being enthusiasts to warm them. 



U' dor suthcircum stances it is both refreshing and encourag- 

 ing to find that the Col:)nists of the Thames Valley, >*ho 

 some time ^go commenced si'k ciiHure, have issued their first 

 annual rojiort. in which it is mentioned that about l.fXw mul- 

 berry trees of the morns allta kind have b en planted at their 

 little cxpeii ncntal farm at Parawai. Experimental gardens 

 of this kind wiU undoubteJly help on the enterprise by draw- 

 ing attention to and keeping the public eye upon it. and the 

 sharcholdeirt deserve the thaidis of the community f u- the 

 pi'iuniarv sacrifice they are making meanwhile ; but the cflorls 

 oi the " Tham^fi ^eiicultui^al Associatiou" ought to embrace tea 



and chinchona culture, and be largely s^upplemented by Govern- 

 ment aid if a rapid and enduring success is aimed at. 



No less gratifying is it to learn that the progress made 

 by Mr. G. B. Federli, the Government sericulturist at Christ- 

 church, Canterbury, last season, has prompted the issue of 

 an interesting little manual on silkworm rearing for the ins- 

 truction of the Colonists. Nevertheless something more is 

 needed. By all means let the Government pecuniarily encour- 

 age local silk associations and colonial nurserymen to culti- 

 vate the best varieties of the mulberry in quantity ; let them, 

 if preferred, through their own official machinery, estalUish 

 nurseries for the supply of the various silkworm-feeding shrubs 

 and breeds of silk-producing moths, as well ap. tea and chin- 

 chona plants and seed ; or. what would probably prove ulti- 

 mately of most value to the Colony and to chasericulture, 

 let the Executive subsidise the proposed " New Zealand Cha- 

 eericultural Company " as a great national teaching estab- 

 lishment, to become a grand focus for instruction and ijrac- 

 tical w^ork, rather than fritter away the funds of the Colony 

 here and there in paltry 50l. bonuses as proposed by the Com- 

 missioners of 1871 and 1880. 



I remain, Sir, 



Your obedient servant, 



Overdale, Dunblane, Perth.'shire : WILLIAM COCHKAN. 

 June 7, 1883. 



SCIENCE IN CULTIVATIOX. 



Among- the numerous remetlial measures to which the 

 "seven lean years" have given rise, as partial or entire 

 sijccifics for the evils of hard times, none commends itte f 

 more forcibly to us than that whidi enforces a thorough 

 knowledge of the nature and treatment of the soil, the 

 composition of tlie plants we cultivate, the sources whence 

 the higrcdients of such composition arc derived, tlie de- 

 ficiency of our own particular .soil for the requiremeiits 

 of any croj) and the remedy. 



(Juit^i recently Professor Jamieson expressed his couvic- 

 tiou at a public meeting that three-fourths of cultivators 

 were ignorant of these things, and it is the aim of the 

 Sussex Association for the Iniprovcmcnt of Agriculture by 

 science to enUghtcn ; and it has proved to demonstrntion 

 that as soil ditiers greatly even upon the same formation, 

 so must its trtatment differ according to its requirements 

 in order to cultivate it profitably. It has done much more 

 than this, for it has shown that laud declared to be fo 

 poor that a decided loss attended its culture under tie 

 old hit-or-miss system, could by careful scientific treat- 

 ment not only be made to pay all expen.ses but to yirl I 

 a fair profit, or, to put it more forcibly, that ijrofil;tl.lc 

 cultivation is jjossiblc on the poorest and fotUest land, 

 and that unprofitable cultivation is the fault of the cult- 

 ivator and not of the land. In selecting land for trial 

 poor land was taken in preference to rich, in order that 

 the work might be thorough and its result really use- 

 ful. Careful ami full diaries have been kept of thewoik 

 done at each station iu different parts of the county, antl 

 they arc printed fully in the annual report, together with 

 clear statements of every detail of the crops, soil, and 

 manure. 



Nitrogen and phosphorus are found to be two great 

 wants in Sussex soils. In supplying these wants arti- 

 ficially the effect of pho.sphates proved to be more lasting 

 than was supposed, beneficial effects being clearly visible 

 the second year. Inp-)rtaut as this fact is generally it is 

 doubtless so to members of the Association, who, under 

 the adWce of professor Jamieson, and by the light of his 

 teaching, have applied to the land '6 cv.-t. of finely ground 

 coprolites and 3 cwt. Stt:amed of bone flom- per acre. This 

 dressing is a hea\'y one, recommended for a porsjilat the 

 outset, and will be reduced subsequently to abrut 2 cwt. 

 of each sort of manure. The action of cropolitvs alone, 

 even when reduced to dust, is not sufficiently quick; mixed 

 with the bone flour it answers admirably. Steam d bone 

 flour contains 55 to 70 per cent, of phosphate, and is there- 

 fore supei-ior to natiu-al bone, which contains only 50 to 

 55 per ceit. of phospliate, and cannot be ground so finely 

 as the steamed lione. This is worth remembering. 



It may be fairly asked, Of what use are the Sussex ex- 

 periments to cultivators in other parts of the country ? And 

 as fairly and usefully it may be answered that the results 

 obtained are in many instances so clear and unmistakeable, 

 and of such great practical value, that not only :ire they 

 of general importance as an incentive to the formation of, 

 other county associatious, but also to persons imlividually 



