May I, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



779 



Persia, and imported both through Trebizond and via 

 Bushire, on the Persian Gulf. A large quantity is con- 

 sumed in the district of Smyi'ua, but much is also re- 

 exported to Egypt and other parts of Tui'key. It is much 

 stronger than ordinary Tobacco, and cannot be smoked in 

 the usual way, therefore it is used exclusively for the 

 ■narahile/i. 



Olive Oil (Olea europ,=ea). — The oil of Smyrna is rudely 

 pressed and carelessly prepared, .so that it is not suited 

 for the table, but only for ordinary purposes, yet it finds 

 a ready market in the North of France. Kii^land, how- 

 ever, is the largest consumer, followed by Prance, Germany, 

 Holland, Italy, Austria, and Russia. It is exported in bar- 

 rels, which contain on an average 5 cwt. or 03 imperial 

 gallons. The export varies greatly according to the crop. 

 in IbTO it reached Gy^bi) tons, valued at £2iSU440. The 

 following year it fell to .ilO tons, worth £11,184, but rose 

 again in 18Si to 4,200 tons, and in value £135,336. Olive 

 oil is of three qualities. The. first comes from Airah and 

 Adramyti, the second from Mitylene, which is inferior only 

 on account of its greenish hue ; the third quality from 

 Aidin and liaindye. AH three qualities are produced in 

 the neighbourhood of Smyrna. 



Liquorice Koots (Glvcyhuhiza glabra), — This export, 

 wliich is a natural product, and not the result of cultiv- 

 ation, is largely increasing year by year. The plant grows 

 wild throughout vast districts of the interior, and the only 

 cost is the labour of digging it up, drying and packing 

 it, and transport to the coast for shipment. The entu-e 

 export, with the exception of a small quantity sent to 

 France, and an insignificant one to England, goes to the 

 United States iu the state of roots, where it is boiled 

 down and cunvci. ted into paste, the Liquorice of commerce. 

 The roots arc packed in bales by hydraulic pressure. Till 

 recently the bales were of diiferent sizes ; now they are 

 generally uniform in size, containing 10 or 11 cubic feet, 

 or about a quarter of a tni by measurement, and weigh- 

 ing 280 lb. to 340 lb. This export advanced from 44,700 

 bales, valued at £53,608, in 1877, to 63,000 bales, worth 

 £127,600, m 1881. The demand for the root iu the United 

 States was very heavy in IScO and 1881. 



Liquorice Paste. — The principal exporters of Liquorice 

 roots, Messrs. McAndrews & Forbes, have a large factory 

 in New York, to which they send ihe roots they collect 

 iu Asia Minor to be converted into paste. In America 

 the paste is used for preparing tubacco ; the leaves are 

 soaked in the melted paste to give them the flavour which 

 chewers of that weed most relish. The paste is also used 

 in the United States as a remedy for scurbutic affections. 

 In England it serves to flavour j»orter. In France it is 

 used to make syrups and drinks for the sick. The juice 

 expressed from the root is also used in France to flavour 

 wine. Previous to 1873 some 30,000 or 40,000 cases of 

 paste were shipped annually from Smyi-na to the United 

 States, whore a very small duty was imposed on it, but 

 in that year the American (iovernment put a duty of 10 

 cents per pound on it, while admitting the root free. The 

 consequence is that no paste is now sent direct to the 

 States, but the greater part goes to British America, where 

 it eithe^r serves for local consumption, or is smuggled into 

 the States. Though the export of the paste has fallen off 

 greatly of late years, a considerable quantity is still manu- 

 factured in the Meander and Hermus valleys. The roots 

 when dug up are left to dry throughout the summer, by 

 which process they lose some 60 per cent of their weight, 

 and are then ground to powder ami boiled with water, 

 and the liquor being poured into boxes to cool, becomes 

 liquorice paste. It is in a mass, not in sticks, for it can- 

 not he made to keep that form wiMiout some extraneous 

 ingredient, although the superior and more valuable liquorice 

 of Sicily and Calabria can be made into sticks, and is so 

 exporteit into England. The Turkish liquorice is not so 

 sweet as that of Spain or Sicily, but generally keeps bet- 

 ter, and requires more sugar, which is the only ingredient 

 mixed with the paste Litjuorice paste is shipped in cases 

 v.-(-ighing about 2 cwt. and worth from £3 to £4 eacli. — 

 (Tarileneis" Chronicle. 



THE SUGAR INDUSTKY IN JAVA. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE " aUEENSLANDER." 



Sir, — During a recent \'isit to Java and the Straits Set- 

 tlements, on my way to England, T had an opportunity of 



looking into the mode in which the sugar industry is carried 

 on m those places ; and, as their sugar is likely to enter 

 year by year into keener comj^etition with the sugar produc- 

 tions of Queensland, I have thought that a few notes I have 

 made may be of some interest to some of my fellow-colonists. 

 On the night of the 28th August my two well-known 

 companions, the Eev. J. Tenison- Woods and Mr. William 

 Allan, were landed with myself from the mail steamer 

 *' Ohyebassa"at Banjoe wangle, the most eastern point of Java. 

 A few days spent at Jianjoewangie, amusing ourselves 

 amongst the many beautiful scenes that abound there, suffic- 

 ed to reassure the authorities that we had no designs upon 

 the island, and were not an embassy from Queensland to 

 annex Java; and on the 1st September we started overland 

 in two little two-wheeled traps for Bizouki. which is about 

 100 miles from Baugoewangie. The journey took us two 

 days, but the many interesting scenes that we passed through 

 from dense jungle to highly-cultivated and irrigated lands, 

 with a teeming population of happy contented peojjle 

 thronging the innumerable villages we came to at every 

 turn, far more than compensated us for the discomforts 

 of oiu" cramped position. At Bizouki we reached the rich- 

 est of the sugar-producing districts. 



The whole of Java may fairly be described as consisting 

 of a series of great smouldering volcanoes at distances vary- 

 ing up to 40 miles apart, from which vast masses of volc- 

 anic ash have been vumited, filling up tlie intermediate 

 spaces and surrounding shallows with huge deposits of 

 fine rich volcanic powder. It is on the low levels of this 

 ash-bed, where it slopes into the sea, that sugar is pro- 

 duced. The deposits at an elevation of 1,00U ft. up to 

 5,000 ft. yield coffee and tea, whilst above that again, from 

 the high declivities of Halang and Losarie up to 7,000 ft., 

 the big cities on the coast get their supplies of Euroiiean 

 vegetables and fruit. 



Under the laws ui force in Java no agricultural land can 

 be purchased. All the land under cultivation (except some 

 in the west of Java alienated during the Enghsh occup- 

 ation) is held by the Javanese iu comnumity, each village 

 owing the land that it cultivates, and each villager having 

 a right only (subject to modification acconling to the locality) 

 to the produce off it for a period iu most cases not 

 exceeding three years at a time. "With set slighf a security 

 therefore as the owners were able to give, it was impossible 

 for cajjital to embark iu sugar producing. The Government 

 accordingly years ago made contracts with capitalists varying 

 in their terms according to circumstances, but giving them 

 a lease of land for a period of years, and guaranteeing them 

 a stated proportion of the area in sugarcane each year. 

 The Government, by a system of forced labour, placed about 

 a third of this land in rotation iu sugarcane each year, 

 whilst the natives had the remainder of the land for 

 their paddy or rice growing. The Government undertook 

 to prepare the land and cultivate it, and the mill-owner 

 liad to cat and carry away the crops. The various terms of 

 tax and land rent, &c., which included everything paid to 

 the Government, varied according to contract, but they 

 usually amounted to between 240 and 2S0 gueldors to the 

 bahu (equal to 1-7537 acre), or roughly in our measm-ements 

 to about £12 an acre; although in -some instances it was as 

 low as 190 guelders. 



The Government, anxious to give up this system of forced 

 labour, passed an Act some years ago by which each year 

 a proportion of the land becomes free from contract ; so 

 that in the year 1890 all the land will be absolutely in 

 the hands of the natives, free for them to cultivate sugar 

 or not, as they tbiuk proper. On most of the plantations 

 about one-half of the land is now free, and the mill-owners 

 are obliged to make such terms as they can with the 

 villagers. It is sejdom that a mill-owner can make any 

 contract or arrangement with the headman (if a village — he 

 is consequently obliged to lease land from the various families 

 that compose the village, but even th^iu the land can only 

 be let for the following crop. In addition to the rent which 

 has to be paid to the native, and is Ukely to increase year 

 by year, the planter has to pay 25 guelders or rupees per 

 bahu as a land tax to the Government. A first ratoon crop 

 is usually taken oft" the free land; the land then reverts 

 to the native, who crops the land with paddy for two years, 

 and by copious irrigation restores virtue to the suil. J)iiriiig 

 this period the native pays the annual tax to the ({overn- 

 ment, but 12 guelders a bahu instead of 25 guelders. The 



