March i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



753 



in habit. In a rich soil, it is prolific, and ratoons 

 well; its juice is rich, clarifies easily, and gives a fine 

 sugar ; but, on the whole, it is inferior to the Otaheite 

 variety, while requiring an equally rich soil. 



4. East Indian Canes. — The large red canes of Assam 

 are very juicy and sweet; the sugar produced from them 

 is of an exceedingly fine grain and good colour ; they are 

 moreover, strong in growth, and much less apt to fall 

 over than the Otaheite, to which they are fully equal in 

 size, as well as in quantity and quality of juice. They 

 dower when only eight months old ; consequently they 

 could be cut and manufactured in 10 mouths from the 

 day of being planted. 



In Lower Bengal (near Calcutta), and in the Straits of 

 Malacca, a large red abounds, which bears a very close 

 resemblaueo to the preceding variety. 



The red cane of Bengal is a large and fine cane, much 

 used about Calcutta for sugar manufacture ; sugar made 

 from it by the natives, in their own rough and primitive 

 way, exhibts a grain of good size, strength, and brilliancy. 

 The Malay name is Tibboo Merah. 



The next large canes are the black and the yelloow 

 Nepal, large-sized and fine-looking canes, fully equal in 

 appearance to the Assam. 



As to the small-sized canes cultivated in India, they are 

 very numerous, the most common being the Kajlee and 

 tlie Pooree. They are immeasurably inferrior to our 

 Colonial kinds. — Planter ami Farmer. 



1.20S,.S18 

 1.207,720 

 3.099,895 

 1883 (.5 months) 2,023,061 

 lb. 

 103,624 

 277,.590 

 623,292 

 267,679 



1883 (5 mouths) 



TROPICAL PEODIJOT.S AND THE PLANTERS' 

 ASSOCIATION OF CEYLON. 



{From the Annual Ritjim-t, 1882-3.) 

 New ProductR. — Your Committee congratulates you upon the 

 steatly advancement shewn in new products. Cinchona upon suit- 

 al)le land is rapidly takinj? the place of coffee and where it does 

 not succeed the land is bein^ planted with tea or other efonomic 

 plants. The large and yearly increa.sing shipments of cinchona 

 and tea shew how quickly these products are being developed. 



The total quantities of cinchona and tea exported from Ceylon 

 during the past three seasons and up to 2nd February of the pre- 

 sent season are as follows : — 



Cinchona. II,. 



From 1st October 1879 to 30th Sept. 18S0 



do 1880 to do 1881 



do 1881 to do 1882 



do 1882 to 2nd Feb. 



Tea. 

 From 1st October 1879 to 30th Sept. 1880 



do 1880 to do 1881 



do 1881 to do 1882 



do leei to 2od Feh, 



From home we hear that the large arrivals of Ceylon bark 

 have temporarily affected prices in the Loudon market. Fortunately 

 however when established each Burcessive crop of barked cinchona 

 is of improved value and will thus be better able to compete with 

 that of other countries as it will be produced at no enhanced 

 cost. The question of growing kinds of higher value is receiving 

 atteution in many quarters and when plants of otiier varieties 

 with bark as vahiahle as crown bark become common the pos- 

 ition of cinchona planters will be greatly improved, and this is 

 being rapidly attained. There are certiiinly many places where 

 cinchona will not thrive and as these and the causes of failure 

 become more known, there are not likely to be in the future 

 those sad disappointments which were the lot of many who first 

 amongst you pioneered this new enterprise. 



Tea is a very great success in many parts especially in tha 

 wetter districts where coffee has not been sncoessful and its 

 yearly increasing shipments shew how rapidly it is extending. 

 Many of the estates where tea was first cultivated have become 

 household words amongst you and hardly a mail comes in with- 

 out a new name to the list With relation to Indmu teas, the 

 prices too arc impro\ ing and with the knowledge brought bv ex- 

 perienced men from India you may expect further adv;Mice'ment 

 in the mode of manufacture. During the last six months there 

 have been many sales of Ceylon tea quite equal to the best Indian 

 prices. The erection of necessary machinery is being rapidly ex- 

 tended and every means used to produce a commodity that can 

 in every way comnele with the teas of other countries. 



Cocoa is now l)eing successfully {rrowu in clearings and amongst 

 coffee in Dumbara, Kuruneg.ila, Matnle and other districts, and 

 will year by year shew a larger exjKirt, indeed the present may 

 be looked upon as the first season when an appreciable quanlity 

 will leave Ceylon, but as the local demand for manuf;icturing is 

 steadily increasing and absorbing a large quantity of the yield 

 harvested, the export cannot be looke<l upon as a criterion of the 

 extent of the enterprise. 



Cardamoms. — From the large number of bulbs .sold throughout 

 the coimtry there is every reason to believe that there must be 

 a large extent of this cultivation scattered over the whole plant- 



ing area. The plant seems to flourish with various degrees of 

 success in different places attaiuing in some localities extreme 

 results. 



Rubber.— YouT Committee invites your attention to a despatch 

 from the Earl of Kimberley (seecorrespondeTice) directing atten- 

 tion to the first samples of caoutchouc by the C'eara rubber tree 

 (Manihol Glaziovni) of Ceylon lately brought to England by Dr 

 Tnmen from the Royal Garden, Peradeniya. The result on ana- 

 lysis your Committee thinks is satisfactory, and deserves notice 

 as encouragement to extended cultivation of ttis tree for com- 

 mercial purposes, especially as recent exjieriments seem to pro- 

 mise remunerative results from the trees commencing from a com 

 parativcly early age, and in localities unsuitable to other tronical 

 proflucts hitherto known to us. 



Pepper also is being tried in many parts of the Island and it 

 will be iiiteresling to watch the development of this cultivation 



CroU Prospecting.— \ our Committee is unable to report auv 

 mrked progress during the year in prospecting for gold and it 

 is annderstood from the examinations that have been made in 

 various districts that, though some success has followed thav have 

 not been so far of a very encouraging nature. 



Uaf-disease.—\om Committee regrets that no satisfactorv 

 progress can be reported with reference to a remedv 

 for this pest. Many attempts have been made durins the vear 

 under review, and much pains have been taken to achieve success 

 but so faros is yet ascertained no practical result of a satisfactorv 

 nature has been attained. Besides the carbolic acid processes as 

 advocated respectively by Messrs. Schrottkv and Storck other re- 

 medies have been tried, some ou an extensive scale and all with 

 an anxious endavour to overcome the disease, but hitherto all 

 these efforts have shared the comtnou fate of others previously made 

 with equal earnestness and intelligence. It apparently 'balBes 

 human skill to cure the disease and hitherto prevention has proved 

 as impracticable as cure. The handbook controversy has not vet 

 terminated, but your Committee considers that it has passed out 

 of the hands of the Association and rests with the parlies more 

 directly concerned, the author and his printers. 



Admixture and Adulteration of Coffee.— This important 

 questiou was postponed last year at the instance of tile mover of 

 the memorial, for further evidence as to the actual 

 extent to which the article supplied under the • name of 

 coffee to the million in the United Kingdom was eenuine 

 or adulterated. During his visit to England wliither he 

 was about to proceed, the importance of such evidence was im- 

 pressed on influential persons, who took measures promotlv to 

 obtain the required information. The result showed that 64 ner 

 cent of the commodity sold to the working classes as coffee con 

 sists of adulterants of various degrees of inferiority or worthless 

 ness. With tins evidence the question assumeda new phase : oninion 

 which had been somewhat divided preiiously uow became all but 

 unanimous. Even the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce which had 

 declined to join in the memorial proposed by the -Issociatiou took 

 up and supported its views. But before the action of the Aasoei 

 ation had time to makeitself felt at home the efforts of the London 

 Chamber of Commer stimulated by your earnest friends Messrs H 

 Pasteur and T. Dickson had already attained a result which nra" 

 mised an almost complete and satisfactorv solution of the Question 

 Mr. Gladstone had been induced by thei'r representations of the 

 facts of the case to frame resolutions which would have nractin 

 ally redressed the greater part of the Krievances. TTuforl in'afelv 

 these resolutions were oven-uled, and counter propositions were 

 by a diplomatic ruse, passed through Parliament in an ahnost 

 empty house. The question thus reverted to its orio-nial if not to a 

 still worse position. At this juncture theCevlon n?emorial reached 

 your friends, and was useful in strenglheuing I'heir hands -V further 

 movement accomplished some slight amelioration, but thc'ouestion 

 now stands in the position tersely described by Mr Pasteur in a 



letter to the Chairman of the Association as the followinK '• Thev 



("the Soveruraent) have had the weakness to give in to the re 

 monstrances of the Date Coffee Company, i tlie importers of Frencii 

 coffer, the niannfaclures of ma«co//ie, and other sellers ofsnurious 

 stuff, and are prepared to sacrifice the interests of the British 

 public, and of British colonies and l)o.s.sessions to those of swindlin,/ 

 and fraudulent trades." The history of this last phase of the 

 question is liriefly set forth in the following paragraph in the 

 annual price current of Mr. Pasteur's firm of 11th January 188'i 

 viz.:—" The past year has been remarkable tor an attempt on the Dart 

 of the Government to legislate in the matter of adulteration A 

 minute issue by the Treasury, though dictated by the Board of 

 Trade, under date of 26th January, permitting the importation of 

 coffee or chicory, roasted or ground, mixed with any kihd of vcet 

 able substance, and in any pioporlions, led to an indi.'nant Sro 

 test on llie jiart of the trade. TheLondon Chamber of Commerce 

 took the lead in the agitation, and the consequence was that Mr 

 Gladstone' in the budget on the 2-tth April jiroposed a series' of r.- 

 solutions which if passed, would have given some satisfacli.,n to the 

 just comjilaiuts of the coffee interest. The budget, however had 

 to be set aside for a tune, and the friends of anulteration in th,. 

 ctibinet, made a good use of the interval, prevailing on the Prime 

 Minister ,to abandon his budget resolutions, and to revert to 

 their own original proposals, to allow auvUiing to be sold under 

 the name of coffee provided a duty was 'paid iipou the mixture 

 A resolution to that effect was smuggled through the House of 

 ConinioiLs, in Conmiittee of Ways and Means, "witllout previous 

 notice on the 8tli July, between 2 and 3 o'clock in th.. morning 

 Urgent remonstrances were made to Goveniment against this breacli 

 of faith, and Mr. Chamberlain, and Mr. Courtney finally airreed 

 to some slight concession, the Aotpaased on the 31st July, providing 



