A4 



THE Ti^OPlCAL AdRICULtURIST. 



(July i, 1886'. 



all obtained, a quality of meat, tender and succulent, 

 which the butchers have reluctantly admitted, to be 

 equal to the best ox beef. To briug the cows up to 

 the slaughtering standard he had to employ neither a 

 special diet nor extra rations. The cut cows were 

 ever in exct-lleut condition. In ordinary cases, a cow 

 after producing the usual number of calves, only pro- 

 duces beef of a poor quality, which is hard under the 

 tooth, rebel in point of digestion, and devoid of nut- 

 ritive power, and all this despite their fat appearance. 

 Ovariotomy should be practised whea the cow is 5 

 or 15 years of age ; when slie can be kept on milk- 

 ing and simultaneously fattening, for eighteen mouths 

 and then sent to the butcher, with the certainty of 

 proving renmnerative. 



Dr. Frank was delegated by the Prussian Govern- 

 ment to investigate truffle culture. He bore in 

 mind the ideas of Midler and Schlosing as to the 

 role of animalcules in the nutrition of plants and the 

 nutrification of soils. He now shows that in the 

 case of some trees, oak, ash, and pine, the two last 

 especially, their rootlets are composed of bauds of 

 ir.icrobes, which form a veritable screen, and devour 

 the humus, prepare the food, while forming a "felt" 

 round the interior cellules of the plant. In the case 

 I i' wheat, the rootlets are capillary libres, which secrete 

 an aiil, to dissolve the mineral matter.s, in the soils 

 preparatory' to their absorption by the plant. 



♦ 



CULTIVATION EXPERIMENTS IN THE AHA- 

 KAN HILL TEA' TS : NEW PRODUCTS. 



Mr. V. C. Funshawe, acting Deputy Commissioner 

 of the .A.r»kau Hill Tracts, has submitted an interest- 

 ing report on experimental cultivation of certain 

 economic products in these outlying tracts, but the 

 re.sults obtained by him do not encourage the hope 

 of bringing these remote n gions, peopled by ignorant 

 savages, within the palo of civilised cultivation of 

 uaeful products for the market. 



Tljere are two gardens in which these experiments 

 were cariied on; one at Paletwa and the other at 

 Kyoukpandaung. A sum of El, 000 was allotted for 

 the year 1884-85, of which E889 were expended, 

 .•^ince the last report was submitted in May 1884, the 

 gardens do not show any marked improvement. The 

 money is chiefly spent on gardeners' wages and cooly 

 hire, as it is fo'md very difficult to keep ';he gardens 

 free from weeds and grass during the rains, and nearly 

 half the allotment is spent on cooly hire for this purpose. 



The Paletwa garden occupies an area of 4i acres. 

 Its situation is unfavourable, the ground befng low 

 and swampy in some parts. The I'ea plants here are 

 said to be looking healthy, and have been leased out 

 for one year for RIOO. The Potatoes proved a failure ; 

 but this was owing chiefly to the seeds having arrived 

 m a bad state ; another reason being that they were 

 not planted as they should have been, i.e., in hght, 

 sandy soil, and on ridges; but sown on heavy soil, 

 on low ground, and in trenches. In a country poss- 

 essing a naturally humid climate, with a heavy rainfall, 

 this result was to be expected under the circumstances. 

 Mr Fanshawe, however, is of opinion that the ex- 

 periment is worth trying again this year. The I'cpper- 

 vhie seemii to have done fairly well, and it is iut-euded 

 to plant it extensiv. ly ou the Burmese method of 

 growing betel-vines. The Cinnamon has been a coiu- 

 plete success, and " a small forest of them " is said 

 to e.xist at Kyoukpandaung. The variety of Coffee 

 grown was the Liberian, and the plants appear to 

 have done well. The Arahian coffee was also tried, 

 but it did not get on well. ManiUa hemp is said to 

 get on well, and the same is said of the Hetel-iine. 

 Two Cocoa trees have reached the height of n and 

 4 feet res-pectively, and may be pronounced a success. 

 There are no Sugar-canes in the Paletwa garden, but 

 Mr. Fanshawe thinks it would pay to plant them 

 Among Fri'it. the Mam/o, the Plantain, and the Pine- 

 tipp'e are mentioned. The last-named is said not to 

 do well. An important feature in the report is the 

 rena-k about Kltalci cotton. A little of it is grown 

 for home consumption, but very little is exported, 

 Mr. FhusIjw© tbioks eowe seeds might be giren to 



the cultivators as an experiment, as the price is double 

 that of white cotton ; and that when the peasants find 

 that it will pay well, tbey would probably take to 

 cultivating it regularly. The Chief Commissioner has 

 sent seeds to Mr. Fanshawe, and we shall be glad to 

 hear the result of the experiment. There were no 

 new experiments during the year, 



Mr, Fanshawe, we regret to see, does not seem to 

 take a hopeful view of the utility of the garden at 

 Paletwa. He says : — 



The experimental cultivation in the Arakau Hill 

 Tracts has done little or nothing, I am sorry to say, 

 to induce the peasantry to ti-y new products, and I 

 am afraid that, as long as they live the life that they 

 do at present, they will never attempt anything new. 

 Their staple products are of course rice and seesamum 

 for home consumption, and tobacco and cotton for 

 both home consumption and export. Their time is 

 pretty well taken up in their taungyas and tobacco 

 fitUds, and the month or two in which they have no- 

 thing to do they spend in a series of feasts. The 

 ground used for the cultivation of tobacco could not 

 be used for permanent garden land, as it is all under 

 vater during the rams ; and if tuugyas were cut far 

 from the water, the labom- would be immense to keep 

 the ground properly watered during the hot weather, 

 and that is just the time that they are all hard at 

 work cutting their taungyas for planting paddy, &c. 

 They are too lazy and indolent to put themselves out 

 in any way, and as long as they have enough to eat 

 and drink, with a few rupees to spend yearly, they 

 are quite contented. Different kinds of tobacco and 

 cotton they would willingly sow, I think: and if Mr. 

 Bridges supplies seeds next year, as he has very kindly 

 offered to do, I have no doubt that the experiment 

 will be a success. 



Even if planters were induced to settle up here, I 

 do not think they would find cultivation profitable, as 

 the great difficulty of course would be cooly labour. 

 The peasantry here simply would not work regularly, 

 and all the labour would have to be imported, and 

 even then I am afraid the coolies would be constantly 

 down with fever, for the first year or two at any 

 rate, and unless they were paid at ruinously high 

 rates, they would desert whenever they got a chance. 

 Burmese peasants are, as a rule, of the stamp Mr, 

 Fanshawe has described, and much cannot be expected 

 of them. "With regard to the garden at Kyoukdandaung, 

 which is of more pretensions, it may said that Tea 

 and Ctnchona thrive well, and may be cultivated with 

 success. The tea garden is ah-eady assuming lare 

 proportions, and the time is coming when, with a 

 little skilled labom- for curing processes, the trees will 

 yield a return which ought to make the garden more 

 than self-supporting. The nuiuber of trees and young 

 plants exceeds 12,000, and this number is capable of 

 large extension, so as to form the nucleus of a fairly 

 good tea estate, which would pay well in anj- part 

 of the countiy where labour was procurable at ordinary 

 low rates. The fact, too, that there are over 400 

 cinchona plants at Kyoukpandaung, all doing well, 

 particularly the larger ones, seems to prove that the 

 locality is favourable to the growth of this very im- 

 portant vegetable product. 



Fotatocg and Coffee wore failures. Fruit trees, such 

 as raspberry and apricot, have done well. Tobacco 

 seems to have proved successful, and Mr. Fanshawe 

 has been supplied with seed for extended experiment. 

 The tobacco produced is said to be very good of its 

 kind, and fetches a good price in the local market. 

 Looking at the experiment as a whole, it may be said 

 to have ))een fairly successful : but in our opinion 

 something more than merely official supervision, such 

 as that exercised by a Deputy Commissioner, is needed 

 to pro\e to demonstration whether the results obtained 

 cannot be improved upon. The Commissioner, Colonel 

 Sladen, is of the same opinion, as he say>; — The ex- 

 periment need not for the jn-esent be repeated until 

 the conditions are more favourable, and we can count 

 upon more skilled supervision. It has, however, been 

 decided to continue the grant of K1,(XI0 for another 

 year. Let us hope that the results of the next year 

 will be njore satisfactory.— /nrfifire A(/riculturist, 



