374 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 1883. 



wiile aud 1 .fty and well-ventilated, with a vera'ndali com- 

 JDg low d. ivu all rouud, aud in malarious districts it 

 sbould ha\e one upstair-room as a sleeijing apartment: 

 The store -ite should be chosen on a flat, open to the. 

 sun all dry, and near water. It is built on Clerihew's 

 plan, and s-iould have a steam-engiue to work the fan ; where 

 there is water, a wheel can be employed, but in the lowcouu- 

 try few e.«tates have suiScient for this. Opinions differ as 

 to when the store should be ready. One gentleman says: — 

 *' I should have my store and machinery up by the time the 

 cocoa is 85 years old." Another ^ays; — *• I would begin to 

 erect permanent stores at the end of the 4th year." I am 

 inclined to agree with the latter. 



Superi ittendcnce. — This in the first season is allowed for 

 18 months, as by far the heaviest part of his work will be in 

 the first 6 months, from January to June ; he must be on 

 the spot to give out and supervise felling contracts, and, im- 

 mediat« ly after the burn, whiuh should not be later than end 

 of February, begin nurseries, erect lines, etc. A conductor is 

 allowed for six months ; after that, tilt the estate begins to 

 crop, no conductor is needed. 



I'ielii of Crop : Eftate when in Full Bearing. — I have 

 estimated 1 cwt. per acre for the third year, 3 cwt. for 

 the fo ;rth, and 5 cwt. for the fifth, and they are reason- 

 able. 1 have figures before me showing that over the amounts 

 quoted have been picked. "With trees planted 12 by 12 ft. 

 10 pods per tree jields 1 cwt., and, as there are two crops 

 in a J ear, only 25 pods in each season per tree is required 

 to gie 5 cwt. per acre. I cannot ascertain when cocoa 

 is sui>posed to be in full beai-ing; but opinions seem to point 

 to 111 years, and a yield of 6 cwt. 



jif inuring. — With our poor soils, cocoa must be manured, 

 if we wish to get good crops and keep our trees in good 

 vigfT. The fifth year is not too soon to begin 

 this. A gentleman writes me : — •' I have manured some 

 four years old cocoa with great advantage, and, when it 

 can be done cheaply, I do not think that age too young it 

 put 2 cwt. an acre on my cocoa at an expenditure of K22 

 per acre." If results as good as this were always to follow, 

 I should say four years old was not too young to begin. 



Pt>nc!/i(/.— This is an emit I have not allowed for, but 

 it is one that should ap}iear in every lowcountry estimate. 

 A belt of sapauten feet wide, the seeds planted 18 inches 

 :i;jart, will, in four years, make an impenetrable fence. At 

 1 iree years old the stems should be half-cut through at 

 1 hree feet high and bent horizontally : thus laid, they will 

 lontinue to grow aud send up numbers of suckers. A 

 fence made from sticks of the burut-off clearing can be 

 put up at the rate of about i;2-.5n per acre, which will 

 keep out cattle, aud, with a few repairs, will last 18 months. 

 ■\\Tien the fence is completed, sow thickly along it on the 

 inside the seeds of the tree-cotton, and, as they grow, thin 

 them out to IS inches apart. In 13 months you mil 

 have a live fence that, with two rows of " v.arachchis" tied 

 across at a very small expenditure, will keep out all cattle 

 especially if you give notice in the villages that the owners 

 of all cattle caught in the estate without a cro/s pole round 

 their necks will be fined hea%-ily. I am sure from my ex- 

 perience of lowcountry hfe that there is more ill-feeling 

 bred between estate-manayers and villagers through cattle 

 trespass, than from all other causes combined, and, if this 

 coa!d avoided there would be very little stealing from estates. 

 This is my experience. 



Enemies of the Cocoa Tree. — Of these, there are only two 

 ^hat we know at present, and neither is very serious. On of 

 in lividual trees scattered over the estate, the pods are seen 

 to be spotted black, and, according to the virulence of the 

 attack, the pods are either stunted in growth or killed— trees 

 attacked one year may be quite free of it the next. Those 

 most competent to judge say it is due to an insect. I am 

 watching it carefully, but have not yet succeeded in dis- 

 coveriug this insect, aud I have my doubts about it ; yet 

 the way that only a tree here aud there is attacked looks 

 very much as if it were. The other enemy I believe to 

 be a fungus, though this has also to be established ; it attacks 

 tha young tips of the branches, destroying them, and often 

 the branch itself for a foot or two back. The tree, how- 

 ever, almo.st immediately throws out fresh shoots, and, in a 

 month's time, it would be not known that anything had 

 been wroncr. I have occasionally seen a second attack 

 foUuw. This disease is more common when the trees are 

 young, and rare I be)ie»'e aa they grow older. — W. Jakdixe. 



The In-dheubbee Teee is doing well in the Northern 

 Territory of Australia. It is likely that the product will 

 soou become an article of export. — Planter and Farmer. 



Ceylon Planters in Noetheks India : the Other 

 Side. — A former Ceylon planter, now on a tea estate 



in Assam, writes to a friend in Ceylon as follows : 



" There is no doubt Mr. knows of plenty * of 



men (bachelors) who are willing to clear out of Ceylon. 

 The sooner they do so and come out hire the better 

 for their chances of ever being able to return to 

 England with anything in their pockets. Salaiesare 

 very good out here. It seems a common th ng for men 

 of 3 and 4 years" standing to draw their K30u' tu K4U0 

 a month, and men with Ceylon experiences have a 

 great pull over men straight out from Eugland. 

 Messrs. Fmdlay Muir & Co. [? Calcutta] are the bLs't 

 men to apply to, as they are buying up esta'es and 

 going in for jungle very extensively, and are hard up 

 for men, but a 3 years' agreement mn.-it be signed 

 — nothing is done out here without a stamped agree- 

 ment : not that they keep you to the s liaries men- 

 tioned, as should one get on well, the agreement 

 may be cut every year and a better one given. Thiuog 

 are carried on very differently by Calcutta, to the 

 mea?ly way Colombo agents treat one." 



TELiL OF Patent Machixehy foe PEEPABrxG Tea. 



Yesterday Messrs. Jo'nn Greig & Co., engineers and mill- 

 wrights, exhibited in operation at their works in Eegent 

 Koad, Eilinbiu-gh, a new invention in machinery for prepar- 

 ing tea for shipment. The machines are ts be sent to the 

 International Exhibition to be held at Calcutta in Decem- 

 ber next. There are four machines used iu the process 



namely, a cyclone mthering aud drying machine, a cutting 

 machine, a sifting machine, and a link and lever rolling 

 machine. The first-named is in the form of a drum, into 

 which the leaves are placed to be diied. It revolves rap- 

 idly, and has four fins in the centre. Heat is generated 

 by a globulose pipe tea drring stive. This stove is open at 

 the side to allow au' to get into the pipes, and on their 

 being heated at the top a draught is immeiliately created. 

 A cast-u'on box or an- chamber, in which there are four 

 trays, is the tea drier, but the pipes go through the top and 

 draw off the heated air again to supply the cyclone ma- 

 chine. It is claimed that by the system adopted the 

 withering and drying process is carried on equally without 

 firing the tea. Cabbage leaves were used yesterday by 

 w,ay of experiment, and a quantity having been dried 

 thoroughly in about six minutes were removed to the 

 cutting machine, which cuts the leaves into sm.\ll 

 square 2)ieces of suitable length to roll up for the market, 

 aud very greatly diminishes the waste from broken tea 

 and dust. A quantity of leaves were next put into a bag, 

 and taken to the rolling machine. The machine, it is 

 claimed, is much less intricate than any previously used. 

 By means of a roller, with an indented surface, revolving 

 in the centre of the machine, and acted upon by a lever, the 

 bag is made to pass round with the cylinder, A clever 

 i lever arrangement provides for a heavy or light pressure 

 I being apphed according to the nature of the leaf. Another 

 apparatus, called a self-deUveriug, horizontal, circular-motion 

 I sifting machine, is stated to be entirely uew iu construc- 

 tion. Four sieves are placed on the machine while in 

 motion. The top sieve retains the red leaf which is too old 

 for use ; in the second, the Souchoug, or cheapest tea to be 

 had here, is retiined; while the third holds the Pekoe- 

 Souchong, and the fourth the pure I'ckoe. The dust from 

 the tea falls below the machine. Such m.achinery, it is 

 submitted, would save manual labour, and in foggy climates, 

 such as jijssam, where the leaves are often wasted through 

 exposm-e, would render the tea-gi-ower indepeudeut of 

 variations in the weather. Mr. Greig has effected a number 

 of minor improvements in the construction of the machines. 

 In the drying machine, for example, the oil used is liable 

 to get upon the tea and spoil the flavour, and to do away 

 with the use of oil the heated pipe is made to run in asbestos 

 plumbago packing. The whole cost of the apparatus is 

 about £176. Several gentlemen engaged in the tea trade 

 in India expressed themselves as highly pleased with the 

 experiments. — Scotsman, Sept. 20th. 



