March i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



745 



^ 



To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 



DISEASE ON BROAD BEANS IN NUWARA 



ELIYA. 



Nuwara Eliya, Fobniary 1st, 18S3. 



Deab Sir, — Euclosed I send you foi- inspection a few 

 leaves taken from my broad bean plants, gi'owing in 

 my vegetable garden. You will perceive that their leaves 

 are thickly covered mth some t'lmgus. I would feel greatly 

 obliged by your telling me if these fungus spots are 

 similar to those found on the blue gums. 



WTieu the plants in question came up they were quite 

 healthy and very promising. In fact not a single seed 

 of them was a failure at first. The fungus appeai'ed 

 at ihe time the stump came witli blossom and, owing 

 to the disease iio doubt, they did not set. 



I have noticed similar spots on other vegetable plants 



close by but not in such profusion I am, sir, yours 



faithfully, DELTA. 



[The affection in this case, which covers the whole 

 leaf ivith a gi'anular formation, must be due to a fungus 

 or to veiy minute insects, we should say. Its existence 

 shews the eti'ect of the abnormal wet and cold seasons. 

 It does not resemble the leaf-disease, which is so formid- 

 able, because it is followed by canker in the stems. Our 

 coiTespondent does not say that the stems of his beans are 

 aft'ected. — En.] 



COFFEE ADULTERATION. 



Dear Sik, — I would call your attention to the fol- 

 lowing passages from an article in the Planters' 

 G zette :— 



"Retrospect is usually as unsatisfactory as prophecy. 

 If good things have happened in the past, there is 

 always the fear that fortune may change for the 

 worse. On the other hand, if the look behind is 

 dreary, the impression of the future becomes stamped 

 in sad, perhaps unduly sad, colours. The planting 

 colonies iiave passed through a year chequered with 

 good and ill. and at the present moment there is 

 an amount of depression in Mincing Lane that, if it 

 does nothing else, leaves a very considerable margin 

 for hope of improvement. It has become every year 

 more apparent that a steady remunerative price for 

 colonial produce is not to be depended upon except 

 upon the basis of an increase of consumption pro- 

 portionate to that of production. 



" With regard to Ceylon no effectual remedy has been 

 found for the disease, and it is impossible to expect anv 

 very considerable increase of consumption, especially iu 

 view of the recent legislation authorizing the sale in 

 packets of a mixture which passes for coffee, but is 

 principally carrots, or some other equally appetizing 

 root. Rio ships as much coffee to the States as to the 

 whole of Europe." 



These extracts should appear in view of the ap- 

 proaching Planters' Meeting at Kandy when a dis- 

 cussion of the question of coffee adulteration is to 

 take place. Perhaps some member on that occasion 

 may move that a memorial be sent, not to the 

 " grand old man. " not to Lord Derby, nor yet 

 to the House of Commons, seeing that the members 

 of that House sit in fear of the publicans and grocers 

 who could practically sit upon them if they dared to 

 attempt to free coffee from its present degraded 

 position, but to the Field ilarshal of the Blue Ribbon 

 Army. If this movement is worthy of the name it 

 asaumes, surely it is time the leaders of it moved 

 their forces forward to the attack upon that adultera- 

 tion which after all is perhaps the greatest enemy 

 of the working man who, objecting to be poisouetl, 

 tiies to strong beer and immaturn spirits still more 



demoralizing. No doubt judges, bishops and others, 

 who have protested so strongly against the crhne 

 of drunkenness, would join the ranks and so brhic 

 the '-grand oli man" to reason. 1 am sure a strong 

 memorial sent to the quarter indicated would result 

 in a speedy victory, for the Blue Ribbon Army vote 

 must now be a big one. 



Figures must be given of course shewing the 

 rate of progress of consumption in the United States, 

 Canada, the Continent and elsewhere, compared with 

 those for the United Kingdom, say during the past 10 

 or 20 years. The thouglit next comes: what would the 

 consumption of coffee in these other countries be iu 

 5 years from now if their several Governments passed 

 such laws regulating the coffee trade as have pre- 

 vailed in England until quite recently, especially so 

 if supplemented by that last exquisite and quite unique 

 addition made by the " grand old man," ivho wished 

 so much he said to see a fair and free fight between 

 coffee and tea and strong drink ! The more one 

 thinks of this matter the more one's admiration in- 

 creases for this G. 0. M. ! — Yours, 



ANTI -ADULTERATION. 



"HYBRIDISM" IN EXCELCIS: 



Xallankanda, Feb. Sth. 



Dear Sir, — I have discovered on this estate some- 

 what of a rarity, an officinalis and a sciccirubra tree 

 growing from one root. Of course when they were 

 planted, the two plants must have been put into the 

 one hole, and during the course of their eight years 

 of life their roots have combined and unitied; 

 but it is a 'matter of some strangeness that the trees 

 have exerted no- inftuence the one on the other, each 

 preserving intact its own type, and sending out suckers 

 true to that type. — Y'oiirs truly. 



VANTOSKY RENTON. 



[This is analogous to what has happened when 

 Ledgeriana is grafted on succirubra : the stock and 

 graft are united but not combined : each remains true 

 to type. — Ed.] 



CAN COFFEE FUNGUS (H.V.) SPORES GERMIN- 

 ATE AND REPRODUCE THEMSELVES IN 

 LIBERIAN COFFEE BERRIES ; AND 

 IF SO WHY NOT ON ROOTS ? 



9th February 1883. 



Dear Sir, — To those who have not lost faith iu 

 coffee, and who are engaged in carefully observing 

 all phenomena, testing the accuracy of every feasible 

 theory, with the object of discovering a partial remedy 

 for lieiiiilcia vastalrix, it is of the utmost importance 

 thiit Mr. Win. Jardine's apparently incontestable con- 

 clusion Bhould be put beyond the region of any doubt 

 whatever, viz , that a spore can germinate and re- 

 produce itself on a Liberian coffee berry. 



If a spore (contrary to the dicta of Marshall Ward 

 and your correspondent " W.") reproduce itself on 

 the tough epidermis of a green coffee berry, tloes it 

 not go a long way in support of the theory that the 

 coffee tree rootlet may also prove a host, although, 

 Ijerhaps, not to the extent ot' fructiticatiou ? So much 

 feasibility has the latter XAvxt no time ehould be lost 

 by local scientists in testing it, for I have ever held 

 that to the roots more than to the leaf must we look 

 for a solution of the all-impnrtant question of " What 

 ails our coffee trees?" 



Should it turn out that the destructioi; of rootlets is 

 caused by the spor.s being washed through the soil to 

 the teifder rootlet, where they germinate and destroy 

 their host, how simple the combating of tlie pest 

 would bee ime. Of course we should still have the 

 disease on the leaf, the fall of which at critical periods 

 (such as the present) would doubtless prevent over- 



