344 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1883. 



themselves ignorant of the management of any plant 

 that grows. In consequence of trusting to them, the 

 wliole thing seemed a faUure, cliiefly oiving to the fact, 

 that they brought me brauolies instead of stems, a very 

 email p< rcentage of wliich rooted, and the few that did 

 so, took upwiu'ds of a year to make stem. Tlie few that 

 fiid ultimately take a start, have attached themselves to 

 the rocks, aud are now in some cases ten feet high. 

 Those I have planted this season with better skill, are 

 getting on as well as could be desired : some of those put 

 down in June, being now three feet liigh. It gets on best, 

 ou a northern exposui'e, and only attaches itself to the 

 rock, wliere there is a dark scurf of foreign matter on the 

 surface. The longer the slip tlie better, and it should be 

 all covered except the terminal bud, aud two leaves. 



An authority on vanilla cultivation, gives five feet as 

 the leugtli of rines necessary to yet a good sti-oug plant in 

 a reasonable time. At the Government Gardens those vines 

 are sold at one cent an inch, so that each plant would 

 cost sLxty cents, which at l,4r)2 to tlie acre, would be 

 R867. Tliis is the way Government encourages new 

 products ! I began viith a rupee's worth, cut into eight 

 inch lengths, and I think ou that foundation, I may 

 with great care, get a quarter of an acre in seven 

 years, allowing for failures. I believe vanilla is a highly 

 remunerative product when once fully established ; but few, 

 I fancy, will go into it in Ceylon under existing conditions. 



The best kinds of pineapples, are easily propogated 

 when a beginning has been made. If properly treated 

 by removing the suckers, when they attain the size for 

 planting out, an old stock, is almost inexhaustible. The 

 Kew pine is, however, a slow coach as it takes two year's 

 to ripen its fruit, and a great deal of care and labour 

 to protect it in the final stages. 



I have got a small percentage of the hundreds of 

 orange plants out of danger from their special foes, catter- 

 pillars aud crickets, and when once they get a 

 fair start, they come on rapidly. It is a cui-ious fact, 

 that wliile the oranges, have been destroyed in hundreds, not 

 a lemon plant has been touched. The natives say that the 

 or.mge tree, takes eight years to bear ; if my memory serves 

 me honestly, I have seen it in bearing at five years upcountry, 

 aud I have a lime tree here that has fruited within four years. 



I cannot boast of much success with nutmegs: 800 seeds 

 only produced 250 plants, aud three-fifths of these, have 

 perished since planting out, aud only a very few are really 

 thriving ! Everyone who ventares on experimental agri- 

 culture, must pay the teaching, those who are not in a 

 hurry to make a fortune will prefer paying small fees, when 

 the same knowledge can be gained from one pole as from 

 twenty acres. 



CAKD.UIOMS grow here, but not as I have seen them else- 

 where. At two years from seed the roots are large, the 

 stems are very slender, numerous, closely-packed, aud the 

 tallest under four feet. I fancy the small patch of about 

 fifty plants has not been suited either with soil or shade. 



Having grown the wax palm aud the talipot in 

 nursery beds, I have experienced nothing but dis- 

 appointment, in transplanting. I therefore decided to 

 put the seed of arekanuts where they were to remain. 

 My former experience with the native variety of this 

 plant was not encouraging, but this season has been 

 very favourable ami I have ISh per cent of fine healthy 

 plants ; some of the seeds came up iu six weeks, others took 

 six months. 



I cannot say much about tea, yet it is only a little over 

 eight months since the first seed. The plants hung fire a long 

 time after transplanting, and some of them have not made 

 a start even now. Some plants left in the nursery are 

 from 18 to 30 inches, with 7 inch leaves, aud the most for- 

 ward plants in the field are 20 inches. 



1 fear Mr. Gilliat's, are not the last words to be said 

 about Ceaua' rubber. It seems probable that any tree, 

 untouched till four years old, will yield a good deal of sap, 

 however tapped, but the fresh bark, that closes over a cut 

 is different from the original, and exteuds in width with 

 tlie growth of the stem. Wy experience is, that little or 

 nothing is to be got by tapping this fresh bark. I need 

 more light before forming any lixe.i opinion, but my latest 

 experimeut i.s with horizontal incisions, which appear to 

 nic less permanently injurious, thiin the vertical. [Mr. 

 VC. J. Forsyth tells us that iu Central America, the rubber 

 gatherers make horizontal incisions. — Ed.] 



MR. STORCK'S CARBOLIC ACID CURE (?) 

 FOR COFFEE FUNGUS. 



Mr. Storck, {see page 349) notwithstanding the adverse 

 or at least sceptical verdict of those most deeply interest- 

 ed, claims that the results of the experiments on Claverton 

 estate, Dikoya, with his carbolic acid "vaporizers" 

 proved the success of his method. In this he fol- 

 lows Mr. Schrottky, who insisted that hh "powder" 

 system— so severely condemned by Mr. Storck as in- 

 volving the carriage aud application of 75 per cent 

 of foreign and useless matter— had succeeded, altliough 

 the planters could not see it, look as sharply and 

 as hopefully as they might. Mr. Schrottky could 

 not complain that his system did not receive justice 

 in its application, because he was personally pre- 

 sent to superintend the experiments witli both the 

 powder and the vapour, the latter specially being 

 thunder H-hich he had stolen from Mr. Storck : so 

 Mr. Storck insists. Mr. Storck has not had the ad- 

 vantage of being present in Ceylon, but if he has 

 not come to HemUeia vaxtalrix the fungus has gone 

 to liim and we really must insist in this case on 

 the application of the proverb "Physician heal thy- 

 self." Wlien Mr. Storck lias succeeded in banishing 

 the fungus from the coftee of Fiji, or from his 

 own coffee on liis Kewa River plantation, he can with 

 better grace appeal to the Ceylon planters for aid 

 in carrying out his system, or rate them for im- 

 perfect action and -want of perseverance. The sys- 

 tem is not so costly as to prevent Mr. Schrottky 

 from carrying out and pointing to a successful ex- 

 periment, if success is possible. In answer to his 

 complaints that iu the Dikoya experimeut there was 

 a mingling of Mr. Schrottky's powders with Mr. 

 Storck's vapours, we have to adduce Mr. Jardine's 

 careful experiments with the vapour alone, and in 

 increasing strength as JMr. Schrottky's own views de- 

 veloped. Mr. Jardine is at this moment carrying out 

 Mr. Storck's most recent instructions and with the 

 strongest possible motives to command success, if 

 that were possible, in view of the virulence with 

 which Hemili'ia vnstatrix has attacked that species 

 of coffee from which so much was hoped under the 

 belief that its liig leathery leaves of Liberian coffee 

 would be able to resist the insidious foe. ilr. Storck 

 advances an argument based on the want of success 

 in banishing the potato disease, to show the un- 

 reasonableness of the Dikoya Committee iu expecting 

 premature results. But the argument really makes 

 against Mr. Storck's own contention. The potato is 

 an annual, and the seed can be changed with each 

 crop. If all the wealth and skill and science of 

 Europe have not, under so much more favourable 

 circumstances, succeeded in extirpating the potato 

 pest, what likelihood is there that coffee planters in 

 Ceylon or anywhere else, wliere the coflec fungus 

 exists, should he more successful, when the subject 

 of attack is perennially iu the ground and con. 

 stantly producing crops of fresh leaves as prey for 

 the spores of a fungus gifted with a power of re. 

 production which uumbers fail to represent ? If carb- 

 olic acid vapour is really fatal to the coffee fungus, 

 then Mr. Storck must be prepared to advise a re- 

 sort to nicasuics not merely heroic hut sublime. 

 Instead of pottering with a few " vaporizers" ou 

 issolated estates or all the estates of a country, he 

 must demand a resort to such a use of his remedial 

 agent as would envelope in an atmosphere of car- 

 bolic acid gas, not only Ceylon, but Southern India, 

 the Straits of Malacca and even Sumatra and Java. 

 But it volcanic fumes of sulphur and soda .'uul other 



