Avtit h jS^.1 T^S f I^OPIdAt AGHlCJUtf t^ftiSf. 



^66J 



LED SEEDS: ABBUS PEECATOEIUS. 



A writer in Science Gossip gives some very interest- 

 i)g iutormation concerning a plant very commou in 

 the neigbibourhood of Townsville (Queensland, and in 

 Colombo. — Ed.) and which will be readily recognised from 

 his description. He maiies a mistake in saying that the 

 root of th« aorus pi ecaiorius is poisonous. It has a de- 

 cided flavour of liquorice, and may be unwholesome if 

 any great quantity be chewed; but practically speaking 

 it i^ not iujurious to the human subject : — "Those who 

 have visited the Indian and Colonial Exhibition, or, as 

 it is barbarously called, the Colinderies, will no doubt have 

 noticed m a number of liifferent courts, a curious pea-like 

 seed of a light red colour with a black patch ; in our court 

 I noticed a number of caps and ornaments made entirely 

 out of the seed of mimosa glauca and this red seed, 

 which has for its scientific name that of abrus pre- 

 catorius. But this is not the only name which will 

 be found in the different specimens ; some have the 

 name of reglion sauvage, cascarella, jequirity seed, 

 suabre's-eyes — and in fact the names are legion, but 

 they are all applied to the one seed, abrus precatorius, 

 called precatorius because it is much used for Roman 

 Catholic rosaries in some parts of the world. This 

 seed is that of a plant which once had the name for 

 curing certain diseases of the eye, but there is not 

 mu;;h foundation for this reputation. The plant is a 

 deciduous climber, and has pea-like flowers of a red- 

 dish-purple. A specimen two years old may be seen 

 at Kew, but it has nob yet flowered. On chewing 

 the leaves, which are composite and much like those 

 of the acacia, a sweetish liquorice taste will be noticed ; 

 it is in fact called the wild liquorice, but must not 

 be confounded in any way with the liquorice plant 

 (Glyc^rrhiza) of the British Pharmacopceia, though 

 they both belong to the same group of plants. 

 Curiously, the root ot this plant is poisonous and has 

 often been used by the convicts in Mauritius, both 

 by rubbing it on their eyes and chewing it, to in- 

 duce illness. Another most interesting fact about 

 this plant — or rather the seed — is that the natives of 

 the country in which it lives found out that all the 

 seeds weighed precisely the same (about five grains, 

 I should say), so, as they had no other standard 

 weights, they instituted these seeds as a standard 

 weight, and called each seed in their own language a 

 carat : and this carat is in fact the origin of our carat 

 weii<ht of gold. This fact alone made the seed one of 

 interest tome, and, combining it with the fact, that 

 it bjlongs to one of, if not the most important 

 order of plants of economic value, makes me think 

 that there may be others like myself, who, ignorant 

 of the above facts, will be glad to know them. 

 —Townsville Herald. 



JAFFNA CIGAES. 



Somehow the trade in Jaffna cigars has received 

 an additional stinmlus lately, so that the business in 

 the Cigar Boutiques is unusually brisk as one could 

 B-e on passing One cause is swid to be the short 

 production of those varieties of Jaffna Tobacco which 

 chiefly enter into the making of what is called a real 

 "Jaffna." During the month of December 1885, the 

 weather appears to have been rather unfavourable to 

 the lives of the young plants which were then being 

 removed from the nurseries and transplanted in beds. 

 Some thousands of young plants transplanted during 

 a day were found the next morning withnred and 

 dried — not indeed by the heat of the Sun's rays; but 

 by some unknown cause. Some few who have tried 

 in various ways to trace the cause of this wholesale 

 destruction seem to have discovered a small worm, 

 which they call " Uluvan " literally the plouffher, 

 which gnaws away the plant at its root— a single 

 worm going through a whole bed of planis during a 

 night. In this way were the nurseries so thoroughly 

 exhausted, that plantations were not as fully planted 

 as usual. This accounts for the comparative shortness 

 of the Tobacco crop of this year, But the whole To- 

 h»ceo has gq^ suffered 9P tnucb, as it is Gs«ally growe 

 SI 



on higher ground and in harder soil than the one in 

 which the Cigar-Tobacco is cultivated. Good prices 

 are now realized by Cigar Boutiques as well as by the 

 hawkers of what are called street cigars. But there 

 is yet a good deal that can be done to stimulate the 

 trade and make the Jaffna Cigars the real luxury 

 they ought to be, if properly made and tastefully 

 served up. What are Cigarettes as compared with a 

 good genuine J^iftua Cigar? Of course the dealers 

 in Cigars should first have a taste themselves before 

 they caa provide for the taste of others. But ,they 

 generally calculate ou deriving their customers from 

 the general population rather than from the upper 

 classes or even the middle class. 



Of Cigars there are 4 sizes. 

 The 1st size, 12 pkts. to a lb sells for 10 cts. the pkt. 



2nd do 16 do do „ 6 „ 



3rd do 24 do do „ 5 „ 



4th do 30 do do „ 4 „ 



The price per thousand is as follows : — 



1st size R7 50 per thousand ^ 



2nd do 6 00 do 



3rd do 5 00 do 



4th do 3 75 do 



Of course there is an allowance or abatement or 

 discount or whatever you may call it to those who 

 buy Boxes or in wholesale, as it were. 



The Strett Cigars do not come under any of the 

 above rates, they being made of Tobacco of inferior 

 kinds: and generally they have no fixed prices; but 

 they sell for whatever they can get, whether it be 

 high or low. Most of the cigars selliag in Colombo 

 are of the Street Cigar kind, and they serve in gen- 

 eral to bring Jaffna cigars into disrepute. The real 

 Jaffna cigars could be had only at about 10 principal 

 boutiques in Colombo, not any where else. These 

 boutiques profess to supply Negombo, Kaltura, Kaody, 

 Eatnapura, Chilaw, Puttalam and Anuradhapura ; but 

 in none of these places is a real " Jaffna " to be had 

 " for love or for money." Another fact in connection 

 with Jaft'na cigars deserves to be noted. Each of 

 the 10 Cigar boutiques of Colombo employs about 

 150 men in Jaffna in the manufacture of the cigars : 

 and about as many more are hawking cigars in and 

 around Colombo. Including the growers of Tobacco, 

 every boutique may be said to maintain about a 

 thousand families, being altogether ten thousand 

 families depending on the trade in Jaffna cigars. 

 Oow.— "Ceylon Patriot." 



SUGAR SOILS IN BRITISH BUEMAH. 



Dr. Romanis says : — 



"These soils are evidently produced by the decom- 

 position of granite or some other primitive rock. In 

 the sample of E I found fragments of decomposing 

 felspar, the constituent of granite that supplies potash 

 to the soil. There is no doubt that this is the secret 

 of the fertility of these soils. Another thing i.« that 

 soluble potash is higher than usual. They will yield 

 several crops before they show signs of exhaustion." 



Canes had been cut on the land from which 

 soil selections were made, the juice tested, and the 

 amount of kyantaga (gur) obtained had been ascer- 

 tained with the following results;— 



Percentage of Percentage of coarse 



sugar in juice sugar (gur) in juica 



Name of soil, according to according to 



saccharo meter. experiment. 



{ A 25-71 15-27 



B 20-00 12-52 



„., . „ IE 25-71 15-27 



Bilm vallye ^^ j^ 22 '85 1431 



I ... ...Notcultifated, 



I^H 22'85 14-31 



_,, ., „ ♦ K 27'14 1700 



Thebyu valley I j^j , ..Not cultivated. 



The percentage of juice was, however, taken from 

 the different places at different times and there was 

 a month's interval between the testing of H and 

 tbat qI K, Tbs cultjrators tbemsslyes #tatei(S tbat tb9 



