JUYL I, 1882.J 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



crops, he clears a new portiou, and tluia finely 

 wooded spots become denuded of trees, and covered 

 with rank grass rendering them unfit for further 

 cultivation. Apain, to obtain the gutta pereha the 

 trees are cut down and none are planted in their 

 stead, so tluit in distriols where they were in nbund- 

 ance one or two only are now preserved as curiosities. 

 It is a wonder indeed that a single tree is left. A 

 writer in the Haramak Gazette says 'that from 1S54 

 to 1875 over 90,000 piouls (of 133^ lb each) of gutta 

 pereha was exported from Sarawak aloue, and this 

 meant the death of at least 3,000,000 trees. In fact 

 the only thing that preserves ihe tree at all is that 

 It IS of no usH to cut one down till it is 25 to 30 

 years oM. Sooner or later recourse must be had to 

 cultivation and conservation. (J. Co.) 



"T 



MANURING, WEEDING, &o. 

 A correspondent writes : — 



The FicM of March 25th contains a lecture on " the 

 production and loss of nitrates" by iMr. Warington 

 that might interest many of your readers, the subject 

 being one that more than probably is deserving of 

 serious attention here, as at home, under many 

 headings. Not least so as regards manuring, unre- 

 mitted clean weeding, and the system so largely 

 in vogue of close surface draining, to an orthodox (fepih 

 of not under IS inches \ 1 mean to say nothing against 

 either of the above, though, as regards the system of 

 draining, I have often fancied coffee at least did not 

 benefat by a too close adherence to the latter ; and 

 that shallower drains, and as few of them as possible 

 answered best. As for manuring ; nothing like it 

 to secure good crops, and high returns, of course ! But 

 stdl there are two ways of doing a thing ; and much 

 hitherto unaccountable want of success under this 

 heading may now become e.xplained. 



Systematic clean weeding is of course such an im- 

 mense saving and convenience in many ways that 

 counter arguments would need be grave to think 

 even of foregoing it. Still it may have its dis;idvant- 

 ages, and seriously impoverishing ones too ! 



The same paper also contains an interesting account 

 of the sugar sorghum enterprise in the United States. 

 Also, a letter from 'Mr. JVIorris, which, as I read it, 

 IS nothing better than an attempt to recruit capital and 

 investors at home, for Jamaica, at the expense of 

 Ceylon, by a disparaging and unjustifiably in- 

 correct comparison and statement as regards the labor 

 supplies of the two countries. 



Have blue gum leaves or a decoci ion of same ; chloride 

 of lime; margosa oil; carbolic powder; castor oil 

 varnish or crab oil, only, it is said in the Field, procur- 

 al3le in Demerara, received fair trial against white ants? 



X. 



I ^\' ^'~} <=^'^"o' iie'P fancying that rather coarse, 

 broken, dry charcoal might supply a useful medium for 

 applying strong preventatives that otherwise would be 

 injurious to the plant. If, as I fancy in the case of 

 ammonia, it has the property of absorbing, and sub- 

 sequently releasing, but vnry slowly, any at all volatile 

 substance, .t might do this so yraduaUy as to in noway 

 harm tlie plant, thouuh to a sufficient extent to appeal 

 to the good .«enseof the ants and induce then, to "ass 

 on; whilst at the same time it would store a supply suffioi- 

 ent to act as a reminder for an indefinite time. 



THE CLIMATE OF MYSORE. 

 j^^7 the close of a very interesting article in the 

 Madran Mail on sun spots and their coincidence with 



heavy or light rainfall and famine, the climate of Mysore 

 IS thus noticed : — 



In Mysore there is no rain in the so-called cold 

 wcither, and naturally there are no cold weather crops 

 The average rainfall lor the five months from the 

 31st November to the 31st Aprd is only 3^ inches, 

 and this figure, small as it is, represents only fitful 

 tropical showers, which dry up at once under a burn- 

 ing almoat vertical sun and the parcliing wiuds of 

 that season, acting too on a jjlateau 2,000 and 3,000 

 feet above the ,^ea ; for it must be remembered that 

 evaporation proceeds more rapidly in a rare Atmosphere. 

 Under these conditions agriculture is as impossible as 

 under the rigours, of a Canadian winter. For the 

 space of five months the land has rest. The average 

 raiulall for May is four inches, but this is derived 

 from cyclonic falls and years when the monsoon sets 

 111, as It does sometimes, as much as a mouth earlier 

 than usual. The ryot looks for thunder showers to 

 plough his fields towards the end of May, but pract- 

 ically the 1st of June marks the opening of the 

 agricultural year in Mysore. The dry N. K. wind is 

 replaced by the moist S. VV. wind, merciful clouds 

 temper the sun, the thermometer drops ten degrees, 

 and nature awakens from the sleep of die dry season. 

 This is the seed time of the year, and any deficiency 

 of rainfall in the scanty montlily four inciifs of that 

 pen .d becomes serious at once. Of wet cultivation, 

 tnere is not much carried on in Mysore under the 

 disadvantages of the dry season. That under river- 

 red channels is comparatively of insignilicant area ; 

 that under tanks is very restricted, and depends on 

 the nijiply of water in the timk, i. e., on the 

 quantity rather than the quality of the last 

 monsoon rainfall. A cultivator of wet land has 

 his eye on his tank, as he puts his plough through 

 the sludge. He will plough jnst as much as he 

 thicks he has water for. The fitful showers of the 

 dry season are a matter of indifference to him. These 

 showers will put no water into his tank, and, when 

 It 13 considered that the evaporation from sheets of 

 water freely exposed is about two-thirds of au inch 

 per diem m the dry weather, we arrive at the re- 

 sult that the total average dry season rainfall would 

 normally equal, area for area, the evaporation from a 

 rice flat for four days. Practically, therefore, these 

 hot weather showers are of no account to the cultiv- 

 ator ; and, when the cry of famine in Mysore is 

 raised in the middle of the hot weather, it will be 

 admitted that the moment cho.sen is sinoularly ill- 

 timed. We have s^en that there was last year a 

 small dehciency iu the S. W. monsoon ; the N. E. 

 was up to the average ; there were two period's of 

 anxiety owing to two stoppages of the rain?, the first 

 of practically a month's duration in July, the second 

 of three weeks iu October, normally the wettest mouth 

 of the year. But the year shows a total of 27.'; inches 

 of otherwise fairly distributed rainfall, against tl^ie aver- 

 age of 35 inches (35\S9 if the average of the last 11 

 years be taken), and iu the face of euch a ivcord, there 

 does not seem much chance of a famine. The years 

 1871 and 1873 had raiufalls each of 29 inches, and 

 no one cried famine, although the population of My- 

 sore was then one- sixth greater than now. Men's mirds 

 are still unhinged by the remembrance of the fearful 

 calamities of 1876. The early showers are de^;ciel)t: 

 there is a slight importation of ragi by rail, as is most 

 natural con.suleriug the harvests in the turroundino 

 districts of Madras were iietter thau those iu Mvsoie° 

 and forthwith the cry of "wolf" is raided. The 

 fact IS we know less about the periodicity of drou.'hts 

 in Mysore, a country which has been known to Euro- 

 peans for a century, than in the newly settled dis- 

 tricts of inland Auetralia, where the droughts are of 

 great severity, but are considerably mitigated by a 

 knowledge of their periods of recurrence. 



