442 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1883. 



Planting in the Trincomalee District : To- 

 bacco AND Cacao. — Mr. H. H. Master writes from 

 Lowlands : — "Thank you for sending me the ' Tobacco 

 Leaf.' 1 eee the paper speaks of a near future for 

 Sumatra tobacco, especially as wrappers : I hope 

 indeed it may be so. Sumatra tobacco has as yet 

 done us but little good down here, generally from 

 bad curing and not being jjlanted out at the pro- 

 per time, too late or too early making all the 

 diiTerence in the crop and season for curing. I am 

 trying 8 acres this year, and hope with knowledge 

 of previous mistakes made to succeed. I am glad 

 to see in the Ohserve.r oi the 25tli Mr. Sauliere speaks 

 well of planting cacao between coconuts, as I am 

 doing the same here and was uncertain whether the plan 

 would answer, taking into consideration the space 

 over which coconut tree roots spread." 



Upper Maskeliya, Ceylox. — A light clear morning, 

 after a spell of heavy wet, and the unmistakable keen 

 and crisp feel of north-uast weather. On such 

 a day as this the climate of the M.askeliya hills is 

 second to none in the world, the Blue Mountains of 

 Jamaica and of Mr. Morris not excepted. I have been 

 reading of the account of the Portrush {Co. Antrim) 

 Railway, and it has set me thinking that we have 

 in this district water enough to store electricity for 

 the whole world. A single wire stretched from a 

 40 feet fall will generate force equiil to a 26 

 horse-power steam engine. Let those whom it may 

 concern make a note of this. (I wonder if ecience 

 will ever use the tide of the sea as her motive 

 power, at once as never failing and powerful as it is 

 invincible.) Coffee is looking better again, and. with 

 a dry season, we ought to do better next year than 

 this. Not saying much perhaps, but all we ask for 

 is crop enough to pay expenditure and enable us to 

 plant up tea. Picking is merely a walkover uow-adajs. 

 Ah ! for tiie brave and halcyon days of old Matale 

 when the coolies could only get over five trees each per 

 diem ! — but then coffee stuck at 60s. Cannot you engage 

 professors. Baldwin as your special prophet, to prophecy 

 toig on the ooffee market ? At present, for instance, it is 

 surely a rising one, yet I hear of sales being made at 

 E9 for the incoming crop. Now this is hardly good 

 enough. As to cinchona, if its true value is only six- 

 pence per unit, how is it the price of quinme keeps 

 upas it does ? Surely there is a "ring," and it is enough 

 to make the plauter an;ithemize the Milan Co., Pel- 

 letier, Howard, and all the many Jews and Gentiles 

 employed in the manufacture of the sulphate, with a 

 vengeance. About the most valuable large lot of bark 

 ever exported left Maekeliya lately ; its analysis 

 averaged over 9 per cent, and its price just over 

 30c! A fearful enare this product has been al- 

 together. This is the very ye:\T your worthy cor- 

 respondent was to have retired with his little patrimony 

 increased ten-fold. His little patrimony is buried and 

 gone as effectually as are his hopes and his paper 

 calculations. I see you are very hot on tea. Person- 

 ally I would rather sell it than grow it. They tell 

 me tliat one advantage is you can aliandon it with 

 impunity and re-open again ; well, but you can't do 

 this with R250 debt per acre upon your place, and 

 who hasn't got as much ? As to prices, do you think 

 that this good run on Ceylon teas will last, because 

 I don't ; and it is better for men to face the fact 

 that their yield up here will be more probably 300 

 than 400 pounds per acre — except on unusually good 

 land— and their average price will be GOc, rather 

 than 75c, as at present ; in fact, those that can 

 make Eo5 per acre profit will do well. All I main- 

 tain is that wc have no right to base calculations upon 

 prices that have run up in a most unprecedented 

 manner, and which are more absohitely ruled by sup- 

 ply than is the case with any other staple ; and we 

 shall do well to remember that tea is a terrible cosmo- 



politan, and will grow anywhere and everywhere. 

 Let: us enter upon this new venture with all hope 

 and determination to do O'.ir best, but without rush- 

 ing or vaunting it ; then, we can say that these latter 

 years have not taught us the hard lesson of adversity 

 in vain. 



Cinnamon in Ancient Times,— Dr. Carl Schumann's 

 ' Kritische Uutersuohungen iibor die Zimtliinder,' pub- 

 lished as a supplement to Pt;'.crraann's MUteihmgen, is 

 a most erudite contribution to the history of geography 

 and of commerce. The anchor carefully exanines the 

 notices on cinnamon and cassia to be found in the 

 writings of the ancients and of the Arabs, and critically 

 exammes these by the light of modern research. The 

 ancient Egyptians procured their cinnamon from Punt, 

 which is identified with the " Regio innamoraifera,'' 

 or the modern Somali land. But neither cinnamou nor 

 cassia was a product of this regiou, nor are they now, 

 and this point is amply proved and illustrated by a 

 consideration of the geographical distribution of the 

 Lauraceje. The khhit of the inscriptions in the temple 

 of Der al Bahari is correctly translated "cinnamon" 

 or "cissia"; the latter word and the gizi of Galen 

 and the kezi'ah of tlie Hebrews are derived from it; 

 but it is itself a corruption of hei-shi, the Chinese name 

 for cissia. The author concludes from this that China 

 supplied the ancient world with most of, if not all, 

 its cinnamon, but did so through traders settled in the 

 ports of Arabia or of the Somali coast. China main- 

 tained her monopoly until the discovery of cinnamon 

 on the island of Ceylon. Ibn Batuta is credited with 

 having first mentioned this island as a cinnamon region, 

 for the Sayalan of Kazwini and Yakut is not Cejlon, 

 as supposed by Col. Yule and others, but Rami or 

 Sumatra. — ljOm\on Athfiueum, Oct. 26. 



The Cikchona Ledgeriana Contkoversy.- Mr. 

 Howard has written the following reply to Dr. 

 Trimeu in the Planters' Gazette ; — Sir, — I have seen the 

 letter of ray friend. Dr. Trimen, which I think may 

 render good service in bringing out the contrast between 

 the yed-tapei.-<ui of "tasouomic and descriptive botany," (in 

 which he thinks me ill-iuformed) and such practical 

 information as I am able to supply. I have only just 

 received the paper, and cannot be expected to reply to 

 all that Dr. Trimen says, still less to admit that my 

 " term Ledc/eria-jia was not intended as the name of a 

 variety or form of cinchona, that in fact it did not apply 

 to a plant or tree at all^ but was meant to include all the 

 bark of a cei-tain rich quality grown in Java from Mr. 

 Ledger's bag of seeds." The truth is that I thonght the 

 quality and the physical characteristic of the bark pointed 

 to a new sort, which my friend. Dr. AYeddell, defined as 

 a variety of his Calisai/a, and of course I must " abide 

 by this diai/nosis." It does not at all follow that I think 

 it complete. This sort of barktrce (to speak gene- 

 rally) Dr. Trimen describes after faulty specimens (as 

 I think) as a new species. I cannot enter on the ques- 

 tion of the correctness of the plates. Compared with 

 Mr. Moens' recently published work— still more with 

 the herbarium he was good enough to give me, I 

 find them, as I have s;iid, fanlii/ ; but, be tliat as it 

 may, I thiiik it of gi-eat importance to the planter to know 

 that all the forms wliich produce such a good result iu Java 

 are suuply fjood Calisa^ii. and esteemed as such in their 

 native countiy. That there is no new species, simply a 

 variety, distinguished by generally white flowers, &c., but 

 that the seeds of hfst C'llisai/a imiiortod by Mi*. Christy will, 

 in all probability, produce cxaetli/ t/ie same forms as those 

 from Mr. Ledger's celebrated hag, without the trouble of 

 going in search of some fancied new species. Dr. Trimen 

 counsels me to cease to " tackle questions of technical 

 scientific botany, for dealing with which I am so little 

 quaUfied." I ought to be grateful for this .ad\-ice, though 

 1 apprehend my errors in this line are not more conspi- 

 cuous than that of a Professor who describes for the benefit 

 of cinchona planters a cinchona ■without any .analysis of 

 the bark which it produces, or means of recognizing the 

 same " in commerce." — Yoms ti-uly, John Eliot nowARi). 

 P.!S. — Will Dr. Trimen help my ignorance by informing me 

 whivt toiistitutes a true species ? 



