May 2, 1887.] IHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



725 



Afghanistan, Persia, Abyssinia, and along the 

 shores of the Mediterranean, and he could assure 

 them that among the wild tribes of Afghanistan 

 the fruitgrowing industry was pursued in a way 

 which not only outvied but outdid modern Eu- 

 ropean culture, whether regard were had to 

 national manner or scientilic method. The Af- 

 ghan was an arrant thief, dirty, loud-smelling, 

 and treacherous, as all Asiatics are : but as brave 

 as a lion, as we had on more than one occasion 

 found to our cost. The lecturer than went on to 

 describe how the mountain men of Afghanistan, 

 rilthy and unkempt as the specimen he had told 

 them of, made annual journeys from their moun- 

 tain valleys in caravans of camels, loaded with 

 dried fruit, which they sold to the inhabitants of 

 the thickly-populated plains of India, leaving here 

 a bale and there a bundle, until when they reached 

 Calcutta they realised enormous prices for their 

 merchandise. The natty way in which the semi- 

 barbarous Afghans brought their fruit to market 

 was compared with the slovenliness with which 

 fruit was treated in New South Wales, from the 

 hour it was gathered to the time it reached the 

 hands of the consumers, in a condition more 

 calculated to inspire disgust than to excite appetite, 

 very much lo the disadvantage of the latter. The 

 fruit-markets in the bazaars of Asian cities were 

 described and compared with the abomination 

 which does duty for a fruit-market in Sydney, 

 and the Union was adjured to use every cllort, 

 and never to rest satisfied until a building 

 was erected in keeping with the admirable site 

 now occupied by the market bhed, a building 

 worthy of their noble industry and their 

 splendid city. Many practical hinto were given to 

 growers how they might, by introducing productive 

 trees for break winds, instead of the unproductive 

 hedges in vogue, add to their prolits, and the 

 pistachio, chestnut, walnut, almond, hazel, egg- 

 plant, and several species of tenniiiaUa were in- 

 stanced as suitable lor the purpose, and for the 

 products of which there was an unlimited market. 

 The potentialities of the fruit industry were illub- 

 trated by reference to tlie Vale of Cashmere, to 

 the Khanates of Central Asia, Merv, Herat, lyhiva, 

 itc, and all along the banks of the Oxus, where 

 fruit constituted an important staple of the food 

 of the people. There the value of irrigation in 

 fruit-growing was seen to the greatest advantage, 

 and their fruit was put to a use which the people 

 of New South Wales might well take a lesson 

 from. They had there a method of mixing the 

 pulp of fruit with the kernels of nuts, melon 

 seeds, and camels' milk. This was pressed and 

 formed into a cheese, which, when properly made, 

 would keep for years, and which improved with 

 age, and was highly nutritious and wholesome. He 

 had, without exaggeration, walked up to his knees 

 in masses of egg plums fallen from the trees in a 

 New South Wales orchard, and which the owner 

 had not even the wit to convert into pork by 

 turning the pigs in to eat. Now, had a daughter 

 of the household turned to and run the pulp of 

 these through a sieve, and converted it into a fruit 

 cheese after the manner of the Central Asians, it 

 would have prevented waste, which was to him, 

 of all things, most hateful, and turned the plums 

 into a wholesome article of diet. The fruitgrowing 

 interest in California was next glanced at, and the 

 amazing results of irrigation, by which the desert 

 had been made to literally blossom like the rose, 

 was dwelt on at length. The vastness of the possi- 

 bilities lying before the union was illustrated by 

 the growth of the trade in America, and statistics 

 showing how rapidly that trade had been evolved 

 li cm small beginnings. India he considered to be 



the nearest and best market for Australian grown 

 fruit, although he could see no good leason 

 why fruit should not be shown in Covent 

 Garden market within 50 days of its being 

 gathered in a Central Cumberland orchard. 

 Having proved his position by incontrovertible 

 figures, Mr. Inglis said : — Before I conclude, let 

 me say one word about the shameful neglect of 

 manuring which largely prevails throughout tlie 

 colony. If you desire that your children should 

 develop into specimens of humanity like William 

 Beach, you will not begin by stinting them in 

 their food. If fruit trees are to be kept in a state 

 of prolific health, something must be returned to 

 the soil for what is abstracted from it by every 

 successive crop of fruit ; and in addition to all 

 that I have told you, ineffectively I fear, because 

 hurriedly — but you have been such kindly attentive 

 listeners that I have been impelled to go on and 

 to cover a more extensive ground than I had origin- 

 ally intended — if you desire your union to become 

 a powerful means for the populsion of the colony 

 in the pathway of progress, let me recommend you 

 to cultivate some of the old-fashioned, but not on 

 that account less valuable characteristics of sterling 

 manhood, such as self-reliance, thrift, industry, and 

 manly uprightness of thought and action, avoiding 

 pretence, evil speaking, and fraud in all its multi- 

 farious phases. 



Silk. — Kecent experiments have resulted in a use 

 being discovered for the wild silk plentifully found 

 in the valley of Kyushu, and a company is being 

 formed to work up the material, which is found to 

 be well adapted for mixing with cotton and wool. 

 The silkworm lives on maple trees and produces a 

 large cocoon. — American Grocer. 



A LAK&i: amount of sago has been exported of 

 late, owing to the immigration of Brunei sago- 

 workerb, and to the seasonable rains which en- 

 able the producers to float down the numerous 

 tributaries of the Padas and Klias Rivers the 

 sago in its raw state. The price of Sago Flour 

 in Singapore, has risen from *2-07 to 'II2-18 per 

 picul, and this has given fresh impetus to the 

 industry. When the price is <|Uoted at '!?2'50 per 

 picul, the enterprising Chinese Sago-factory mana- 

 gers will according to agreement made two years 

 ago, willingly pay a small stipulated increase of 

 Eoyalty to the Government on both the raw and 

 manufactured material. — Burnco Herald. 



A Xew Foudek. — The Assistant Director of Agri- 

 culture in Burma, about this time last year, in reply 

 tu some inquiries from the Military Department with 

 reference to the fodder supplies of Burma, recom- 

 mended the cultivation of crab grass. He has just 

 published a report on the system of cultivation then 

 recommended, which was adopted this season at the 

 Kyauktau farm, and gave an outturn of nine tons 

 per acre for the first cutting in July, whilst another 

 cutting can be made in October. The first cutting 

 can either be used as green fodder or preserved in 

 a silo, whilst the October cutting can also be cured 

 as dry hay. The hay that was made last October 

 kept in excellent condition until the rains commenced 

 this year. This grass is but little valued in India, 

 whilst in America it is much valued as a hay crop, 

 and is still more valuable in Burma, as it gives twice 

 the amount of grain and also au extra cutting. lu 

 Burma it grows to the height of about three feet, 

 aud horses and cattle of every kind eat it with 

 great relish, aud will remain in good condition if 

 fed on it without any other grain. Its cultivation 

 appears to be very simple, as the land only requires 

 to be ploughed twice at the beginning ot the rains 

 with a turn plough, and then harrowed twice with a 

 triangular harrow, when the grass will germinate of 

 its own accord.— C'aJciitta Kiifjli^hmaiK 



