December i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



421 



TEA GARDEN SKETCHES. 



The SirJai-hi — or woman sirdar, owes her position to 

 the fact of her possessing the longest tougue of any one 

 on the estate, (bar none). "WTien the women require a 

 slanging for jjlucking badly, no one can make such an 

 impression on them as this gifted female. 



She walks amongst her sex, jingling her bangles, with 

 an air of supei'iority which is not to be denied. 



She seems to understaml the languages (which are many) 

 and the peculiarities (which are more) of all the people 

 in the lines, and she often lets the men have a bit of 

 her mind when they interfere -with her department in 

 any way. 



She is one of the oldest coolies on the estate, and is 

 thoroughly versed in all the intricate manipulations allotted 

 to her sex, both in the tea-house and on the gardeii. On 

 the whole she is a useful institution. — B. 0. — Indiaa Tea 

 Gazette. 



ARTIFICIAL PROPAGATION OF OYSTERS. 



Siu, — I have received from Professor Baird, United States 

 Commissioner of Fisheries, a telegi-am which I am sure will 

 be of great interest to European fish-culturists, and which 

 I, therefore, take pleasure in making public through the 

 colums of the Field. 



It is to the effect that Mr. John A. Ryder, embryologist 

 of the Fish Commission, who has for two or three years 

 been engaged in iuvesti^^ations upon the oyster, has finally 

 succeeded in successfully propagating this moUuskby artifical 

 means. On the 4th of September there were in the ponds of 

 the Fish Commission at Stockton, Maryland, an immense 

 number of young oysters, three-quarters of an inch in dia- 

 meter, which had been hatched from artificially impregnated 

 eggs forty-sis days before. There was abundant natural food 

 for the young oysters in the pond, and they were miUtiply- 

 ing rapidly. 



I need not say more than that this succe.ss marks another 

 epoch in the history of **fish culture." — G. BRO^\■^■ Goode, 

 Fisheries Exhibition, South Kensington. — Field. 



SUPERPHOSPHATE OF LIME AND RUST 

 IN SUGAR-CANES. 



The following letter from Mr. James McHenley, Analytical 

 Chemist, will be read with interest : — 



The SLipherpbosphate of lime made from bones, or from 

 the waste products resulting from the manufacture of 

 animal charcoal, is not alone a valuable fertiliser but an 

 antidote to the " rust " disease in sugar-cane. A number 

 of years since, when on the Zunderbunds of the Hooghly 

 River in India, the rust had for several seasons destroyed 

 the cane crop : two philosophers from Europe came to 

 investigate the cause, and for this purpose begaii at the 

 effect, but failed to find the cause. They discovered 

 auimalcul.'e on the leaves of the cane, but were unable to 

 say whether they were the cause of the rust or the pro- 

 duct of the rust, and so the matter ended — the planters 

 being left as much in the dark as ever. Not being a 

 philosopher, but a humble analyst, I set to work to analyse 

 the sound and unsound canes, and found the rusted canes 

 to be deficient in sulphur and phosphorous, and therefore 

 recommended the application of the superphosphate of 

 lime, which had the desired effect — the rust disappearing 

 wherever applied. Some five years ago, when I came to 

 ]\Iack:i.y, I made a lot of superphosphate of lime at the 

 Foulden Plantation, which was applied to some rusted 

 black Java cane, the result of which was marvellous. The 

 rust disappeared : a heavy crop of cane, rich in sugar, was 

 the result. Five hundredweight to the acre was the quantity 

 used. — J AS. McHenley. — Qveeiisland Planter aai Farmer. 

 [Has superphosphate of lime been observed to have any 

 special effect on coffee leaf disease beyond invigorating 

 the trees. — Ed.] 



United States a plant similar to the Ilex parof/irai/ensis, or 

 Paraguay tea tree, from which th. leaves are stripped and, 

 used in infusion as an article of food under the name of 

 mate, and gives the following description of the cultivation 

 of the tree, and the method employed in the preparation 

 of this article. In rich soils the tree will attain a height 

 of from seventy to nmety feet; it is said to be confined 

 to mountain slopes, never apx>earing on table lands nor the 

 broad plains which sKirt the river beds, while it is plentiful 

 in all the moist valleys that branch out o£the extensive chain 

 of mountains that di\'ide the waters of the Parana and 

 Paraguay rivers. For the preparation of mate proper, the 

 leaves are dried, or roasted in cast-iron pans, set in brick- 

 work and heated by fires underneath; when the leaves are 

 su^ciently heated, they are pounded in stamping mills 

 worked by water or steam power until reduced to powder, 

 and then packed in bags by means of presses. There are 

 three qualities or sorts of yerba known in the South Amer- 

 ican markets. The best is said to be prepared from the 

 young leaves when they are about half expanded from the 

 bud, called caa-cnif.^; the second consists of the full-grown 

 leaves, carefully picked and separated from twigs, and 

 frequently the midrib and veins of the leaves are removed; 

 this is called caa-mira', the third is the caa-r/naza or Yerva 

 de Palos, made from older leaves, carelessly broken up with 

 the small branches and leaf-stalks, all of which undergo the 

 roasting and pounding process together. The leaves are also 

 collected and dried in a similar manner to that adopted in 

 the preparation of Chinese tea. This is called matv in leaf, 

 and is prepared for use by infusion, and taken with milk 

 and sugar in the same same way as ordinary tea. Mate in 

 powder is also prepared by infusion, by putting into a small 

 vessel about an ounce of the powder, and pouring boiling 

 water over it; as the fine dust does not fall to the bottom, 

 but remains suspended in the water, the mafr is taken by 

 means of a sucker, that is. a tube terminating in a small 

 hollow ball pierced with very fine holes. M^aii- contains 

 theine, the same active principle as tea and coffee, but is 

 not possessed of their volatile and empyreumatic oils ; it 

 contains less essential oil, more resin than coffee, but less 

 than is found in tea. Chemical analyses show that it con- 

 tains nearly double the quantity of theine that the same 

 weight of grains of coffee contains, and about the same 

 quautityas tea leaves. Tlie Brazilians recommend ?»('/?(^ as a 

 nourishing, warm, aromatic, stimulating, and very cheap 

 beverage, its extreme cheapness being a guarantee of its 

 genuineness, as it is not worth adulterating. — Journal of 

 the Societi/ of Arts. 



THE PARAGUAY TEA TREE. 



The superintendent of gardens and grounds attached to 



the United States Department of Agriculture mentions in 



his last report that the dep.artment has recently had niuner- 



ous inquiries regarding the feasibility o£ growing in the 



54 



INHERENT AND ACQUIRED FERTILITY. 



All our iileas as to the comparative value of manure 

 from cake and corn have been disarranged, and our faith 

 shaken, by the last report of the "Woburn experiments, 

 from which it appears that Indian corn produced manure 

 which was, weight for weight, quite as effective as that 

 from the consumption of cake. If this is confirmed by 

 further investigation, it would suggest that the table of 

 values requires revision, and valuers will do well to watch 

 closely the results of the "Woburn experiments. They will 

 also have to remember that imported fertility, either through 

 foods consumed or manures applied, only adds to the floating 

 capital, and can be nearly all removed by two or three corn 

 ci'Ops. The durability of artificial and highly soluble manures 

 is even less; and no doubt practical men will consider that 

 the reaping of a corn crop reduces greatly, if it does not 

 altogether annihilate, the claim. 



As regard the manuring value of purchased grain, until 

 we have very strong and confirmed e\'idence to the contrary, 

 valuers must assume a much lower scale than for cnk*^; 

 and this is brone out by general experience. Everyone 

 knows the marked benefit which follows the use of cake ; 

 on grass land; and we venture to think that no practical 

 and observant farmer would agrue that a similar weight 

 of any grain crop, including beans, would have as great an 

 effect. 



If soils under cultivation, and especially during tho process 



of Viare fallowing, are liable to lose some of the floating 



I capital by the wa.shing through the soil of nirvatcs, &c.. so 



I is land laid <lown to grass capable of nccumulating organic 



I nitrogen, as the following table, which shows the amount 



