jAJfUARr I, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



5^7 



able matter, having been moist in the extreme; but we 

 have had pre\'ious wet seasons. Last season was certainly 

 not a dry one, but we saw nothing approaching the 

 "Wellington sample of coffee during the whole of last year. 

 The fact augurs well for the future outlook of coffee, as 

 we cannot help feeling that the trees are still \'igorous 

 and healthy, but are prevented from yielding large crops 

 as in former times from some cause as yet beyond our 

 knowledge. There is still hope that we may see good 

 crops, if not the crops of former days, at any rate on 

 such estates as have been well cared for. As regards 

 the estate in question, we are not aware that it has had 

 any particularly high cultivation. It has, of course, been 

 kept clean and well tended, but we suspect that is has not 

 been highly favored in the matter of manure, or we may 

 have been led to look to that as the cause of the superior 

 quality of the coffee. The Matale, equally with the Pundul- 

 oya, crops are this year of very fine quality, a good deal 

 aloove the average; and we are informed that the quality 

 ou estates in the former district, which have not been 

 named for several years, is in every respect equal to 

 crops from regularly named estates. — Local " Times. " 



SOEGHUM CULTIVATION IN THE UNITED 

 STATES. 



Jlr. Henry Stutniczka, of St. Louis, a geuteman ha\nng 

 a thorough practical knowledge of the beet sugar industry 

 of Europe, in an open letter addressed to Prof. SiUimau 

 acknowledging tlie receipt of a copy of the report of the 

 committee appointed by the American Academy of 

 Sciences to investigate the sorghum interests in this country, 

 speaks most hopefully in regard to its future. 



Since 1871, when fir.st I landed in this country, it has been 

 incomprehensible to me how this singrdarly enterprising 

 people could import more than one hundred millions of 

 dollars worth of sugar per annum. The consumption in 

 this coimtry in 1882 being of home and foreign product 

 942,890 tons, an increase of 120,000 tons over that of 1880. 

 These figures will be found suggestive, when we realize 

 that our domestic supply is not more than 100,000 tons, 

 or about ten per cent of the consumption. Hence the 

 outcome to this home production may safely be said to 

 be unlimited. On the strength of my seven years' ex- 

 perience in the beet sugar industry of Europe, I am 

 convinced that it is f.ir infeiior to the northern cane 

 as a sugar producing plant, and if this beet sugar industry 

 has since 18H grown to be the only dangerous rival of the 

 cane sugar industry of India, and has thus far increased to 

 almost two millions tons annually, what may not be the 

 outcome to that of our northeru cane ? 



The only doubt I ever had of the success of this cane 

 industry in the north, was the possibility of its maturing 

 in sufficient season to secure its crystallizable sugar before 

 frost. There is no difficulty in the manufacture of the 

 juce of any sugar plant into crystallizable sugar, if the 

 juice, on ripening, contains from eight to twelve per cent 

 of crystallizable sugar, and the impurities not more than 

 from two to three per cent. 



I can produce many letters from northern farmers en- 

 quiring how they may separate their sugar- from the mel- 

 ado, and how to prcvtnt their sjiup from crystallization. 

 Now, if their difficulty is to prevent this cry.stallization 

 with the crude and impeifect agencies at hand, what, it 

 may be atked, is to prevent the .'ucces.sful production of 

 sugar in the hands of cx]jerienced men and with the latest 

 and best machinery; and the well-defined manipulations of 

 perfect extraction, improved defecation and boiling under 

 vacmim ! 



Much of the success attending the cultivation of this 

 northern cane and its su.sceptiblity to the production of 

 a marketable syrup or sugar depends, I am satisfied, on 

 the use of proper fertillizer ; that barn yard manure, 

 guano or any other ammoniacal manure producing a rank, 

 fibrous plant with little crystallizable sugar is uncalled for 

 and used to no advantage, but that if any fertilizer is 

 used it should be a superphosphate of lime with small 

 portions of potassa combined. * * # 



There is no occas.sion for disappointment in the failui-es 

 experienced either in the beet or northern cane industry. 

 Europe expended mihions before reaching success. Still, 

 I am of your opinion, Piofessor, that beet sugar cannot be 



as profitably cultivated as the northern cane, but may do 

 in some sections, especially as an appendix thereto, sus- 

 ceptible as it is of occujiying the factory several months 

 longer. * * * I conclude then, finally, that this 

 northeru cane sugar industry needs, with such fostering 

 care as I have hinted at, proper laud, good cultivation, 

 the right kind of fertiUzers, to ripen fully the cane, 

 Second, the extraction, as much as possible, of the juice 

 you cultivate ; third, not to be discomaged with apparent 

 failures ; and last, to induce the state and general govern- 

 ment to give it such aid and encouragement as so import- 

 ant an industry is entitled to. — Heney Stdtniczka. — 

 F<irjners^ Hevieip. 



A TOUR IN THE LAMPONGS, S. SUMATRA. 



Br H. O. FOKBES. 



Among the wonders of the vegetable world, apart from 

 flowers, few will draw forth the admiration of the travel- 

 ler more than the gigantic waringiu and kawat trees, 

 as the native calls them, which are to be found in the 

 second growth as well as in the virgin forest, though 

 naturally greater in the latter. They belong to the fig 

 family, a tribe the botanist falls in love with at once, 

 not only from their striking character, but also from the 

 general beauty of their foliage, and what would be popul- 

 arly called their fruit ; but the fig is in reality a hollow, 

 almost closed cup or receptacle, within which minute 

 flowers, and by and by small fruits, are produced. The 

 kawat and wariugin belong to the genus Urostigma, 

 and often overtop the highest giants ot the forests ; but] 

 they arc among its most relentless parasites and tyrants. 

 As a tiny seed they are brought by some bird, or fruit- 

 eating creature, to the cleft of some tree, great or small. 

 At once they germinate, sending down their rootlets — 

 tiny rootlets at first they are too — and for a time they 

 seem, with their daik green glancing foliage and their 

 long cord-like roofs running down, around, and upon the 

 trunk of their host, anything but ungraceful ornaments. 

 After a few seasons, however, these roots will have in- 

 terlacecl, annealed, and almost closed in the tree that 

 gave support to the seedling. Here and there only, through 

 lattice-like apertures, can its stem be seen, like some In- 

 quisition martjT built into the wall, till it rots away and 

 disappears. The seedling grows, shoots out its top higher 

 and higher, spreads cut its arms wider and wider, drop- 

 ping down on all sides, farther and farther asunder as 

 it grows in height, long slender cords that only longed 

 for the touch of the genial earth to start into all the 

 vigour of as it were a doidjle life — life of a branch from 

 the parent, and life of a root with insati-able feeding 

 powers — and develoiis into a giant stem itself 1 he shade 

 beneath gets deeper and deeper, and all that grows under 

 it, feeling the chill and gloom, withers and dies. Year 

 by year it widens its b.sse and enlarges its stem till it 

 casts its shadow over thousands of square yartls*-we de- 

 scribe an individual under which it has been our fortune 

 to stand with awe and admiration — its broad buttresses 

 ami sturdy supporters locking like the pillars of some 

 ancient Moorish temple, among which the wanderer may 

 almost lose himself. It its season of fruit it harbours 

 legions of skipping squirrels, great apes, and troops of 

 monkeys, which, to the eye surveying them from below, 

 look like piignu'es fitting about amid the branches, and 

 tioni which the spectator is so far off that the most timid 

 is not afiaid, even at the report of his firearms. Im- 

 mense flocks of the large fruit pigeons, and also of the 

 smaller members of that numerous and beautiful family, 

 crowd to this rendezvous, their wings keeping up a con- 

 stant whirling in the air by their coming and going; 

 scoies of the great hoinbill (Buceros galeatus), with 

 their 5 ft. expanse of wing, and myriads of smaller birds, 

 whose varied calls and notes ^lone indicate their presence, 

 flock frcm far and near to this inexhaustible storehouse 

 (and its produce cannot be estimated at less than tens of 

 thousands of bushels of figs), and yet the vast assembl- 

 age but sparsely peoples this single magnificent specimeu 

 of the vegetable kingdom. Of course, it is well 

 known that these trees belong to the indiarubber pro- 

 ducing family, a true caoutchouc coming from the sap 

 of the I'rostigma caret. All the species of the family 

 produce more or less gutta as a white milky sap; but 



