APkiL t, iBSy.j 1*ME tl^Ol^lCAL AG^iCttfiJkt^f, 



m 



wUWtttfii 



made from the external parts of the berry. This was ! 

 called Sultan's coffee and was never imported into the 

 West. 



Poison' Cahinet. 



Mr. Abbot exhibited a model of poison cabinet, which 

 he said was of American invention. Its working was 

 partly mechanical and partly electrical. The cabinet was 

 so constructed that only one bottle could be out of place 

 at one time, and the first bottle taken out must be re- 

 stored to the shelf before anothir bottle could be re- 

 moved. The invention, he said, had been recently per- 

 fected and patented in America. 



Mr. Passmore asked wherein this cabinet differed 

 from one brought forward by Mr. Young, of AA'arring- | 

 ton, at least fifteen j'ears ago, and described in one of 

 the early volumes of the present series of the Phav- 

 macetitical Journal* That appeared to be practically ; 

 the same invention as the present cabinet. 



Mr. Abbott said that he had not heard of the inven- ' 

 tion to which Mr. Passmore referred. American patents ; 

 were not granted until the patent authorities had i 

 thoroughly investigated whether the invention had been 

 in any degree anticipated, and if it had been so antici- . 

 pated a patent was refused. He would make it his 

 business to see whether the invention of fifteen years ; 

 ago was similar to the present one. Of course, it was ! 

 possible that this idea had been anticipated. 



Specimens Exhibited. 



Dr. Paul called attention to a sample of margosa 

 oil recently brought to Kn^^laud from Bombay, and sent 

 for examination by Mr. Charles Christy. It was remark- 

 able for beiu'j; exceedingly bitter. The soil was obtained 

 from the seeds of the uim tree i Azadirachta indicn) one 

 of the drugs of the Indian Pharmacopoeia, and was 

 valued as an anthelmintic. 



Mr. Holmes said that the remarks made by !Mr. Allen 

 suggested some important points. The physiological 

 action of coffee undoubtedly iliffers from that of tea ' 

 in several points, yet the value of these beverages is 

 generally attributed to the caffeine they contain. He be- 

 lieved that the leaves of Catlta ei/uli.s had been examined j 

 by Professor Schorlemmer, but he had not been able I 

 to procure a copy of his paper on the subject. He had l 

 been informed, however, that caffeine had not been found 

 in the leaves, and the exhilarating properties of the 

 leaves must therefore be due to some other principle. ' 

 If this were the case with Catlta i-didh, the cause of 

 the differences between coffee and tea appeared to 

 h'm to be worthy of further investigation. With 

 respect to the margosa oil, it possessed a remarkable 

 alliaceous odour which he had not observed in the 

 bark of the tree, specimens of which were in the 

 collection of Hindoo jMateria Medica in the Museum 

 of the Society. In reference to the specimens which he 

 had placed before the meeting, the tree trunks at the 

 back wer-- those of cinchona tree, from Ceylon, princi- 

 pally Cinchona officinalis, Cinchona succiruhra and a 

 cinchona hybrid, apparently between the C. officinalis 

 and C. st'.cciruhrn. Some of the specimens showed 

 that bark had been renewed by shaving it off in- 

 steid of removing alternate strips, 



KlLGlJlt BEES AND CUBIOtS LEAVES, 



A meeting of the !Nilgiri Natural History Soc ety 

 was lield in the Herbarium, on Jlonday last, 3}arch i 

 7th, Mr. Lawson, President, in the chair. Mr. F. D. 

 Short of Yercaud, was elected a member of the Society. 



Mr. li. Morgan sent a paper to be read on " the 

 Sees of the Nilgiris."' It showed that there are three 

 itistinct honey producin'ij Aphideue on these hills, 

 Apis dor.'aUi, A Indica, and A Flort-a . The first is the 

 l<|-gest and fiercest. Its hives are found in crevices 

 of precipitous rock,s, and in trees, particularly the 

 il Q, ami always well protected from wind and damp, 

 The sha]i- of the comb is semi'circular, one and a 

 half to I ,vo feet in diameter, and about two inches in 

 thickness. The average yield of honey is fromi 15 to 



*Pharm, .hum., [3], vol, i,, p. 870, j 



i>0 



30 pounds from each hive. These bees were numer- 

 ous Ust year on account of the strobilanthus in fiower. 

 Their honey is dark, golden- brown, and peculiar in 

 taste. The Apis Indv'a is the commonest Indian bee. 

 It is very difficult to hive, always preferring natural 

 holes in trees, and they invariably consume all tho 

 honey they gather. Their hives are kept very clean, 

 and they are very cautious in selecting the site, as 

 they have many enemies to contend with in the mice, 

 rats, honey-bazzard and even the jackal and sloth bear. 

 The Apis Florea is found in the lower valleys especi- 

 ally about B idaga cultivation, with their hives usually 

 in some thorny bush. The hive is elongated and 

 surmounted by a dome containing all the honey about 

 2 to o pounds. They never stay long in one place 

 but keep moving about according to the flowering 

 season. 



Mr. D. Hooper next read a paper entitled "an ex- 

 amination of the leaves of Gymnema Sylvestre."' 

 These leaves when chewed have tho peculiar jiroperty of 

 destroying the ta>tu of sugar and all saccharine sub- 

 stances. On taking some powdered sugar after mast- 

 icating a leaf or two it appears to be as tasteless 

 as sand in the mouth. A chemical examination was 

 made of these leaves to ascertain the constituent to 

 which this peculiar property was due. The paper 

 g!»ve the result of this examination, describing the 

 different principles and their manner of extraction. 

 The leaf was found to contain chlorophyll and two 

 acid resins soluble in ether. An organic acid allied 

 chrj'sophanic acid and containing the anti-saccharine 

 propertj' was discovered and named by Mr. Hooper, 

 Gijntneinic Acid. Other principles of the leaf were 

 tartaric acid, a neutral bitter principle, gum, glucose, 

 carbohydrate, cellulose, pararabin, and oxalate of 

 calcium. The last was in the form of crystals in the 

 leaf, known to botanists as conglomerate raphides. 



Votes of thanks were passed to the authors for 

 their papers and the meeting terminated. — Niljiri 

 E.V2'ress. 



AGEIGULTUBAL ENTERPRISE. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE " BOMBAY GAZETJ'E. 



Sir,— I see that the (juestion has been raised in 

 Madras whether the example to agriculturists of 

 successful private enterprise is more potent than that 

 of Government f^rms. I confess that I do not see 

 much analogy between the two, as the object of each 

 is entirely different. That of the latter should be the 

 encouragement of agricultural improvement by the 

 economical expenditure of capital and of practical 

 skill, and in such an institution one of the last con- 

 siderations should be that which is essenti.illy the 

 first object of private enterprise, viz., profit. A 

 Government farm should be an example farm, it is 

 true, in the sense of being an experimental one, but 

 as encourngemeut to capitalists to put their money 

 in the land instead of underground, I would i)refer 

 the example of a successful private uudertaking carried 

 out on conditions open to all possessing a fair amount 

 of capital and energy. 



Allow me, therefore, again to ask for fip:\r.e for a 

 short account of Mr, IJomanji A. Dalal's FuTro fnea.V 

 Bahadarpur), the prospects of which have Improved 

 since ray last visit, a short notice of which you were 

 good enough to publish two years ago. The farm 

 covers 3,500 acres, 1,300 of which are '■his year under 

 cultivation. Of these, 400 are Under wheat; 3UJ under 

 tur (with rice as a first Crop); 150 under winter jowari ; 

 a small area under oih giltm, and tobacco; and the 

 remaining 'iilO aCres Under a mixed crop of a somewhat 

 Unusual liind, Vi/., rice and cotton. This I have never 

 .seen elsewhere, but it appears that the " bemr " soil 

 here i.s no rich that cotton sown alone runs to wood 

 and leaf. Whether an exhausting crop siach a,i rice 

 should be used with cotton appears doubtful, but it 

 is not easy to sugfrest n sub.stitute which would be 

 harvested early enough not to interfere with the uro-.vtlj 

 of the more important crop. 



