g6 



THE TROPICAL AORICtTLTURIST, 



[Aug, 2, 3866, 



for the benefit of the manager, and his sueeesssors. 

 In that light, as the property of an estate to be 

 handed over just as much as its office furniture 

 few proprietors would jorobably refuse to authorise 

 its being taken and tiled regularly (if the periodical 

 was brought under their notice) more especially 

 as on looking over the most recent volume one can- 

 not fail to see how much valuable information on 

 ' Tea '* has been collated. In the belief that 

 •Tea' will restore prosperity to Ceylon, and that 

 plantation property is a good investment for capital- 

 ists, such should not omit the office and connected 

 equipment so advisable on all ' pucka' estates, a 

 part of which would be 'the Troincal Agriculturist.' 

 I find I have gone on writing, but as I ara 

 getting the numbers, for the past year ready to be 

 bound, the volume is before me." 



LETTERS FEOM JAMAICA :— NO. XI. 



WEATHER AND CHOPS — JAMAICA FRUIT TRA1>E — A SHOCK 

 OK EARTHQUAKE — JAMAICA COURT AT THE EXIIIIi- 

 ITION, 



Blue Mountain District, Jamaica, May 188G. 



This year seems so far to be making up for 

 those that have passed since 1879 when there 

 was a heavy flood followed on 18th August 

 1880 by a severe hurricane. The May "seasons" 

 appear to have set in, in the style one hears of 

 from old inhabitants : indeed since the beginning 

 •f the year there has been a prevalence of showery, 

 yet not unpleasant weather, but very few days 

 suitable for curing coffee for market as it is here 

 styled. Crop in the Blue Mountains is now well 

 advanced, most properties have already secured 

 more than half their estimates, and in some cases 

 it is hoped they will be exceeded. The quality this 

 year is excellent, the beans specially fine and 

 heavy, so that our planters are hoping for our 

 customary high prices, for very little of such tine 

 colory goes nowadays into the home markets. 

 The weather has been most favorable for the black 

 'Creole" settlers, whose (jroinuh have so long 

 been suffering from drought, this will supply them 

 plentifully with provisions and make them all the 

 more disinclined to work. However, I will do them 

 the justice to say that the women will turn out 

 to pick coffee ; one estate near this j)icked 9 tierces 

 in one week, say 6B cwt., which is remarkably 

 good for a Jamaica estate, as none of the:»i exceed 

 200 acres of coffee, but are considerably less in 

 extent, though spread over a large area in de- 

 tached fields; this separation by bush, and grow- 

 ing forest, makes Jamaica less likely to suffer 

 such a disaster as Ceylon has undergone from 

 over cultivation of one product, massed together in 

 its thousands of acres, utterly obliterating the 

 indigenous jungle.- 



The Jamaica Fruit Trade . seems to be Sourish- 

 iug,j the winter is doubtless the best season, before 

 the oranges and bananas, from the more northern 

 producing countries can reach the American mar- 

 kets. We had a man up here a few weeks ago, 

 coming from Morant Bay some 23 miles offering 

 Is Od a bunch for bananas which price would pay 

 handsomely. A great many coconuts are also sent 

 to America, but in the husk ; there are no mills 

 evidently on the north side, for turning the 

 kernel into coconut oil and poonac. The pro- 

 duction of fibre is being urged by the local 

 Gleaner on all lowcountry planters and set- 

 tlers, but there seems to be a sad lack of enter- 



* " Tea " is the subject of 143 references to papers 

 and articles iti the volume for 1885-6 ; '• Coffee" of 52 

 refereuces.— Ed. 



prise in Jamaica, or disinclination to turn off long- 

 trodden i^aths ; or there is a lack of capital, 

 which the doing away of the consignee's loan as a 

 l)riiuarij claim on a property, should now do away 

 with, as in future ail claims on an estate will 

 have priority in accordance with tlie dates of the 

 loans made upon them, and registered in the 

 Eegistrar-General's Books. 



W. S. 



Ho\y TO MAKE Good Coffee.— The Atlanta 

 C'vvatltution has published a Georgia woman's recipe 

 for making coffee. It's nonsense. Her coffee 

 is " allowed to boil a while." Thus she gets rid of 

 the fine aroma and extracts the tannin, which is not 

 healthful. Now, let any woman who has not a re- 



Eutation for fine coffee try this recipe. Buy the 

 est coffee and grind it to the consistency of ordinary 

 cornmeal. Into a French teapot put an ounce of 

 coffee for every person. One pound of coffee will 

 make sixteen cups, and no more. Have everything 

 clean, and as soon as the water in the teakettle be- 

 gins to boil moisten the coffee gently, and leave it 

 to soak and swell for three minutes ; then add a 

 little more water ; dont be in a hurry ; continue to 

 add water until you have obtained not more than 

 a large coffee cupful of the extract. If carefully 

 done the entire virtue of the coffee will be in the 

 cupful of liquor at the end of five minutes. For 

 four persons use a quart of pure milk and have it 

 piping hot ; heat the large cups by pouring into 

 them hot water ; now divide the coffee into the four 

 cups, each of which will be one quarter full ; fill 

 with the boiling milk. This is pure breakfast coffee, 

 the coffee of the gods, of which no man after drink- 

 ing would be so base as to call for a second cup. 

 Such coffee connot be had at any restaurant in 

 New York. He that drinketh in this morning will 

 be unhappy if he fails to get it tomorrow morning 

 but these instructions must be followed to the letter 



Coca Cultivation in Java. — The following short 

 notice appears in the Medical Journal, No. o (het 

 Tijdschrift voor geneeskunde) contributed. In the 

 pamphlet of Dr. Nivinny, entitled " Pas Coca- 

 blatt," among other assertions it is stated that 

 Erythroxylon coca was successfully introduced into 

 Java by Dr. J. K. Hasskarl in 1854, but that he 

 was prohibited from extending the cultivation by 

 express orders from the chief of the Medical Service 

 in Netherlands India, who looked on any extension 

 of such cultivation as dangerous to the colony. 

 Can nothing be brought forward by any official 

 scientific society— for instance by the Society for 

 the Advancement of Medical knowledge in — favor of 

 the coca cultivation in Java ? or can it be that the 

 chance of adding perhaps 3 per cent of mentally 

 and physically demoralized " co-queros " (coca 

 abusers) to the adult male population of Insul-India, 

 which already numbers 5 per cent of intemperate 

 opium smokers, outweighs the great benefits to be 

 derived from the bringing of cocaine within the 

 reach of the million ; which benefits will be vastly 

 increased whenever the experiments now being made 

 of the internal use of an infusion or decoction of 

 coca shall be found to produce favorable results 

 — for instance in the case of parturientes— leaving 

 out of present consideration the great financial 

 advantages which coca cultivation promises. — Trans- 

 lated for the Observer from the Indische Ojincmer 

 of the 20th May. [From the spelling it is evid- 

 ent that Dr. Nivenny's pamphlet is a German 

 publication. It seems strange that the Opnaner 

 neither contradicts nor admits the statement re- 

 garding the intervention of the authorities in stop- 

 ping the cultivation in question. From other notices 

 of coca in tho Netherlands India papers it doea 

 not appear probable that such action has been taken. 

 —NoU by tranvlator-'} 



