744 



THE TKOPiCAL AGRiCUtTtJHlST* 



CMi4V a, i88^ 



SUBTROPICAL CULTIVATOES AND CLIMATES.* 



The Gardeners' Chronicle has had the foUowiug 

 appreciative notice of Mr. Haldane'a book which, we 

 are glad to learu, has been selling very well : — 



The object of this book, as stated by the author, is 

 to call attention to some of the lesser-known agricul- 

 tural industries of subtropical regions, which are 

 sources of wealth to the inhabitants, but which are 

 almost unknown to the ordinary class of settlers in 

 our Australian and other colonies. With the excep- 

 tion of Sir P'erdinaud Mueller's Sdect Extra Tropical 

 Plants, we had no book which dealt authoritatively 

 with this subject, and Mr. Haldane's carefully com- 

 piled and eminently practical work is destined to have 

 a useful career. lu it are given plain hints as regards 

 the cultivation of fruits, alimentary plants, condi- 

 ments, vegetable wax and tallow, oil-plants, fibres, 

 drugs, tanning materials, dye-plants, as well as tables 

 of the mean temperatures of subtropical count) ies in 

 both the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. iMr. 

 Haldane, himself an experienced and successful 

 planter, brings to his aid a large and varied experience 

 gathered in many lands, and hence his book is not 

 merely a compilation, but the result of practical 

 knowledge and observation, which fits it in a special 

 manner to meet the requirements of " colonial settlers 

 and emigrants." The chapters on Tea, Coffee, Olive, 

 Fig, Orange, gave within a short compass all that is 

 necessary to enable an intelligent planter to draw 

 his own conclusions as to the suitability of these 

 industries to the temperature, soil, and climate of 

 the country in which he dwells. Cinchona, although 

 it bears a cooler climate than Coffee, is for some 

 unexplained reason left out. The chapter on fibres 

 is possibly the weakest in the book, for while it gives 

 Sorghum dura as the first on the list of textile 

 materials, it omits the celebrated China-grass, Boeh- 

 meria nivea, and passes over the Agave hemps, which 

 latter supply, next to hemp, the chief rope materials 

 of the world. These and similar omissions will, no 

 doubt, receive due attention in a subsequent edition, 

 and by means of judicious pruning in such chapters 

 RS those on Tobacco, Cotton, &c., the size of the 

 book need not be greatly enlarged. As a first attempt 

 to deal in a practical manner with subtropical cultiv- 

 ations Mr. Haldane's book is decidedly a success, 

 and the publishers have done everything they could 

 to issue a neat and attractive volume. 



Febeifuoe. — Several years ago. Dr. Peraire, of 

 Bordeaux, France, recommended a substance known 

 as ursa-quinine as a febrifuge, in doses of a quarter 

 to one grain per diem. The preparation was com- 

 posed of ordinary quinine and pure crystallized 

 uric acid. Urea itself has also been recommended 

 as a febrifuge. 



Oyster Culture in China, — My attention was spe- 

 cially called to the stalls of the fishmongers, who not 

 only have river and sea fish, salt and fresh, in great 

 abundance, but an excellent store of bamboo oysters; 

 and if you wonder what they are, I may as well 

 explain that artificial oyster culture is largely practised 

 on this coast, and a bamboo oyster field is prepared 

 far more carefully than a Kentish hop garden. Holes 

 are bored in old oyster shells, and these are stuck into 

 and on pieces of split bamboo, about two feet in length, 

 which are then planted quite close together on mud 

 flats between high and low water mark, but subject 

 to strong tidal currents. This is supposed to I ring 

 the ojster spat, which adheres to tlie old shells, antl 

 shortly develops into tiny oysters. Then the bamboos 

 are transplanted and set some inches apart until 

 tvitbin six months of the first planting they are found 

 to be covered with well-grown oysters, which are then 

 collected for the market. The oyster shells are turned 

 to very good account, being scraped down until they 

 are as thin as average glass, when they are neatly 

 fitted together so as to form ornamental windows, such 

 as we see in the inner courts of wealthy houses. — IFan- 

 derings in China— C. F. Goeden.— ^Iwiencaw Grocer. 



*Suhtropicul Cultivators and Climates. A Handy-book 

 for Flanters, Colonists, and Settlers, By ii. 0, 

 jBaldaoe. Slftckwood U ^qw, im, pp> SOS. 



Db. de VfiY, O.I.E., the eminent Dutch quinologist 

 sends us an iaterestiug commuuication in reply to a 

 statf^ment recently made by Dr. Paul. The latter 

 had qu ited Dr. de Vry as authority for an assertion 

 that i'elletier's original quinine sulphate contained a 

 considerable quantity of cinchonidine. Dr. de Vry, 

 however, declares that he never said so, and Judges, 

 moreover, from his analysis of some of the same lot 

 of bark as that on which Pelletier worked, that bis 

 sulphate of quinine could nbt have contained more 

 than 3| per cent of sulphate of cinchonidine. — Chemist 

 and Dnifjcjist. 



CoFfEE. — " Of Green Bug we have all a horror. I 

 mean all who have any coffee left to be frightened 

 about. One man tries a nciv cure and finds it to 

 be better than anything he has tried before, yet 

 he never publishes it 1 I have heard of several 

 so-called cures lately, but surely they ought to 

 see the light in the daily papers ; and, if tliere 

 is any real yood cure, all might then receive benefit 

 and assist in destroying the common enemy." — 

 So writes a coffee proprietor, but he must have 

 overlooked the full particulars we gave the other 

 day of Capt. Bayley's successful experiments on 

 Nonpareil estate, and the cures he recommends ? 



Cacao Planting in Dominica. — On Thursday even- 

 ing Mr. D. Morris, late Director of the Public Gardens, 

 Jamaica, and recently appointed Assistant Director of 

 the Royal Gardens, Kew, gave under the auspices of 

 the Agricultural Society an able and highly iuteristing 

 lecture at the Court House, on the important subject 

 of the cultivation of cacao as an industry in Dominica. 

 The Lecturer, who is on his way to England to take 

 up his appointment, has visited most of the islands 

 of the West Indies, and arrived here by the lloj'al 

 Mail steamer on Friday last week, it being his intention 

 to proceed by the same Company's boat due here to- 

 day. It is to be hoped that the useful and practical 

 hints given by Mr. IVIorris on this subject will not be 

 thrown away on those planters and gentlemen who 

 listened to him with wrapt attention throughout his 

 lecture ; and notwithstanding the promise given by him 

 to reproduce in the form of a treatise the most 

 salient features of the subject, wfe shall endeavour 

 to place before our readers in some future issue of 

 this paper the principal points of his discourse. To 

 Dr. Nicholls and the Secretary the thanks or all those 

 to whom the welfare of Dominica is dear are due 

 for having in a great measure brought about the 

 lecture. The former gentleman took the chair and the 

 latter genleman organized and carried to a successful 

 termination all the arrangements incidental to the uuder- 

 taking. — Dominica Dial. 



Deugs in 1756. — Our colonial empire was still in 

 its infancy, although our West Indian colonies were 

 certainly more prosperous than they have been of 

 late years, and the East India Company had taken 

 firm root in India. Canada was still a Fi-euch pos- 

 session, while Ceylon, Guiana, and the Cape were Dutch 

 Colonies, and Australasia was practically a blank on 

 the map of the world. Among the products of the 

 New AYorld, gum guaiac, Jesuit's bark, ipecacuanha, 

 sarsaparilla, snake root, Peruvian balsam, and tolu 

 balsam are quoted, each drug at rates far in excess 

 of those now current. Guaiacum resin was at that 

 time considered one of the most active and valuable 

 drugs known, and was used as a remed}" in a variety 

 of diseases for which it is now never admiuistered. 

 Cinchona bark, of which so many varieties now appear 

 in commerce that none but a few specialists can be said 

 to possess a really thorough knowledge of the article, 

 is quoted with refreshing simplicity in two varieties 

 only; "Jesuit's bark opt.," at '6s. tjt/. to 4,i-. ; and 

 "Jesuit's bark secuud.," at Is. Gt/. to 2s 6d. per lb, 

 These two varieties are probably the bark known as 

 " Loxa," and now chiefly consumed in Fi-ance, for 

 until 1752, that is, eighty-five years alter tbe drug 

 first appeared in the Loudon Phannacopccia, the habitat 

 of the cinchona tree was believed to be confined to 

 the neighbourhood of Loxa, in Peru, where the Jesuit 

 missionaries first admiuistered it as a febrifuge, '<■ 

 Chemist aid Sr:i$gi$t, 



