Mav 2, 1887.] I'HE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



757 



According to Thunberg, the famous Swedish botanist, 

 " the Upas tree, an evergreen, is easily recognized 

 at a great distance. The ground around it is sterile, 

 and looks as if it had been burned. The sap is of 

 a dark brown colour, and becomes liquid by heat, like 

 other resins. Those who gather it, have to employ the 

 greatest care ; covering the head, the hands, the whole 

 body, to protect tliemselveh from the poisonous eman- 

 ations of the tree, and especially from the drops which 

 fall from it. They avoid even approaching too near, 

 and they provide themselves with bamboos tipped 

 with steel heads, having a groove in the middle. A 

 score of these long spears are stuck into the tree, the 

 sap runs down the grooves into the hollow bamboo, 

 until it is stopped by the first joint of the wood. 

 The spears are left sticking in the trunk for three 

 or four hours, so that the sap may fill up the space 

 prepared for it, and have time to harden, after which 

 they are drawn out. The part of the bamboo which 

 contains the poison is then broken ofi, and covered 

 up with great care." Again, this author says : " Per- 

 sons passing beneath the branches bare-headed lose 

 their hair. A single drop falling on the skin produces 

 inflammation. Birds can with difficulty fly over the 

 tree, and if they by any chance alight on its bran- 

 ches, they fall dead. The soil around is perfectly 

 sterile to the distance of a stone's throw." This 

 poison is used to put on the arrow points, and also 

 in the execution of criminals. When the point of 

 a lance that has been dipped in this poison pierce.s 

 the skin the individual is " instantly seized with violent 

 trembling, then with convulsions," followed by death 

 in a tew minutes. The Upas is found in diflterent 

 parts of the East Indies, in Java, Borneo, Sumatra 

 and in th'i Celebes. The leaves are figured in many 

 books as those of Antiaris toxicaria. Rumph de- 

 scribes it under the name Arbor toxicaria. The tree 

 grows with a rather thick trunk 60 to 80 feet high 

 with extended spreading branches. The bark is rough 

 and knotty and of a brown color. The wood, which 

 is hard, has a pale yellow color, and is marked with 

 black spots. This tree belongs to the same family 

 with Strycnos Tiento, S. nux vomica, S. Ignatii, S. 

 (Jolubrina, from which the alkaloid strychnine is ob- 

 tained. These two poisons — strychnine and the Upas 

 poison — are the most virulent of all poisons known. 

 From the S. tient6 is obtained the Rajah Upas, or 

 poison of princes. This is a climbing plant that 

 rises spirally around the colossal trunks of trees, and 

 over-tops them at a hundred feet from the ground 

 where they spread their large, green, glossy leaves 

 and hang their fragrant clusters of white flowers in 

 the air and sun light. It is only in the root of this 

 plant that the deadly strychnine, the only active 

 principle it contains, is found, while that above ground 

 is harmless ; even the sap containing no dangerous 

 properties.— CViWrtOH Citi/, Col. 



[Our correspondent is mistaken in classing the 

 Antiaris with the same family as Strychnos. The 

 last is an apocynaceous plant — the same family as 

 the common Periwinkle, and Oleander. Some of 

 these are very poisonous. The Antiaris or Upas 

 belongs to the same family to which belongs the 

 Mulberry and Osage oran?e — Urticacese— and few of 

 these are noxious. The Editor of this once had a 

 plant of the Upas tree under his charge for a year. 

 It was between 3 and 4 feet high, and growing in 

 a 12-inch pot. He had to handle and care for it the 

 same as other plants. His " skull and cro«s bones " 

 are still in their proper places, nor does he know 

 that he was ever in the slightest danger of having 

 them misplaced by reason of any deadly emanations 

 proceeding from the plant. — Ed. G. M.] — Gardeners' 

 Month'.]/. 



[We can only wondnr at the patience of the Eflitor of 

 the Gardeners' Monthltj, with such exploded rubbish as 

 this Rev. Mr. Temp; in reprorluces. Every intelligent 

 schoolboy now knows that the valley in .J<iva owed 

 its pestiferousness not to tho libolled upas trees, 

 but to malarious gasos from the soil. — Ed.] 



Planting the Red Cedar.— -It is proposed to plant 

 extensively the Red Oedar in Bavaria, Tke superiority 



of the wood of this treo (Juniporus Virginiana) over 

 all other kinds of codar is well known. — Garden. [This 

 Virginian juniper ought to succeed iu the hill coun- 

 try of Oeylon, where varieties of junipers flourish. 

 —Ed.] 



Those Haedy Coconuts. — By a casual expression 

 we judge that the recent learned editorial in a Philadel- 

 phia newspaper on planting coconuts along the Jersey 

 coast, was made up by an " intelligent correspondent " 

 -r-that is to say, a wise reporter in a fifth story 

 of a printing oflice--from a paragraph in a London 

 paper referring to the fruiting of the Chili Pine, or 

 Araucaria imbricata. These fruits were said to be 

 " twice the size of the ordinary coconuts," and the 

 "intelligent correspondent " aforesaid, who (in imagin- 

 ation) saw the trees along the cost, got "coconut" 

 in his mind, and thus became a mixed being. — Gardeners' 

 Monthly. 



Solomon's Mines. — "Foma Dabu" writes from Olon- 

 curry. Queen sland, to the Mining Journal : — " la 

 looking over the correspondence in your valuable 

 journal of the I9th December, 1885, the following en- 

 quiry interested me immensely: — 'Solomon's Gold 

 Mines — Where are they :" AVhilst proceeding to Aus- 

 tralia in the month of October, one of my fellow 

 passengers on board, who had for years been a rail- 

 way contractor in ludia, said to me, in course of con- 

 versation. ' As you are a mining man, I know you 

 are interested iu anything connected with ancient 

 mining ; what is your opinion about Solomon's gold 

 mines, and where are they situated ?' My reply to the 

 last question was ' Either in India or Africa ; which, 

 I can't say'. He said ' I know it's India, for I believe 

 I have found the Ophir of Israel, and shall -some day 

 work it. It's situated in the side of a hill, and was 

 vTorked as an open cast of quarry, but is now over- 

 grown with tropical trees and plants, but its base 

 still shows a reef of quartz 20 ft. wide, grand looking 

 quartz for the production of gold.' The place men- 

 tioned by this gentleman is not the Mysore district, 

 but in Oeylon. This may not be interesting to many 

 of your readers, but it shows the Ophir of Israel is 

 looked for in various parts of India and large reefs 

 found in different parts. — Madras Mail. 



The Great Forestry Question. — Often the Editor 

 of a magazine like ours must be tempted to cry 

 " what is the use " and put down his pen in despair ; 

 yet time tells often that his labors have not been 

 without result. Years since we started to show that 

 the so-called forest science, initiated by Mar.sh in 

 his "Man and Nature," was a complete farrago of 

 nonsense. It is pretty well understood now that trees 

 are a result and not a cause of climate.* The 

 hobgoblin being out of the way, there was nothing 

 left for city foresters to worry about but the short 

 supply of timber in the near future. Thus it became 

 a practical question only, and trees will be planted 

 wherever it will pay to grow them. Necessarily, as 

 we then had to say, there was nothing left but senti- 

 ment to care for the old forests. We cannot by all 

 the legislation on the law-year's shelves prevent forest 

 fires iu old forests, and the sooner these forests are 

 gone and new ones planted the better for all of us. 

 These views also are prevailing, and though we per- 

 sonally get little credit, it is some satisfaction to 

 feel that the work has by no means been lost. The 

 very fact that the strange idea has become so much 

 a part of the general thought of the world, till its 

 parentage has been lost, is the more encouraging. 

 Forestru says : — " The writer who says that our hope 

 of a timber supply does not lie in the direction of 

 preserving the old forests, but iu producing the new, 

 comes pretty near hitting the nail on the head. 

 Little good can come from allowing timber to stand 

 until it has seen its best days and begins 

 to decay and lose strength. It is not the ' primeval' 

 but thi- young fonst that needs protection." This 

 is not only our idea, but tin; exact language. — Gardeners' 

 JIontld!i.—[We heartily concur.— Ed.] ■ 



* The opinion which we formed forty-five years 

 ago in Uva, when requested to spare the forest so 

 that a river near Kataragama might not dry up, aud 

 from which wo have never swerved. — Ed.J 



