842 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[April 2, imj'. 



nearly all take place in drinking shops and gambling 

 resorts. The people are not a bad set, but all seem 

 to ohew and spit in ev^ry direction in the most 

 disgusting manner. The food is bad ; the meat being 

 tough and cooked to a cinder, and everything sup- 

 posed to be gobbled up in five minutes. Things are 

 awfully expensive here. No one drinks anything but 

 tea and cofifce at meals. The (tuff they call whisky 

 is most nauseous. Although the place is supposed 

 to be most healthy every second shop is a chemist 3. 

 —Yours, ^• 



The sale of Cullodem tea deserves a special 

 word of notice such as our oorresponden* "Teksab" 

 gives on page 841, for it seems the very good gorice of 

 Is 8id per lb. was not for selected, but for the bulk 

 of the estate's produce unassorted, and grown at 

 only a few hundred feet above sea-level ! Planters 

 at as many thousand feet altitude must beat this price, 

 before credit can be given for superior flavour ; but 

 the fact is that so far, the experience of tea planters 

 at all levels in Ceylon is most encouraging to those in- 

 terested iu the future success of this industry. 



Artifioiai, Coitee. — SoRNANi, of Pavia, in the 

 Ann. diCkim. appl., Farm, ed J/d., announces that 

 he has discovered quite a new and serious adulter- 

 ation of coffee which is being practised by the manu- 

 facture of artificial berries. These berries are com- 

 posed of the meal of beans and acorns, with chi- 

 cory and some quartz powder to bring the mixture 

 to the requisite specific gravity. A dough is made 

 of these ingreclients, which is cut by a special ma- 

 chine into the shape of coffee berries, and after 

 drying has exactly their colour. Sornani says he has 

 found as much as 50 per cent of these artificial ber- 

 rie» mixed with the genuine. On roasting they take 

 just the same colour as the genuine, but they are 

 discovered by soaking in water, when the false ber- 

 ries soon fall to pieces. — Chemist and Druggist. 



Coffee Blight in Brazil. — The Brest!, aRiojonrnal 

 just to hand, states that the minister of agriculture 

 IB at present engaged in devising measures for stop- 

 ping the destructive progress of ft coffee blight that 

 has made its appearance on the plantations of that 

 country. One of the councillors of state has forwarded 

 a report to the minister on the present condition 

 of one of the largest Brazilian coffee plantations, on 

 which the annual yield of over two hundred tons 

 of coffee has fallen to an insignificant amount. Ac- 

 cording to one theory, the blight is caused by a 

 minute needle-shaped parasite, which is produced by 

 millions in the roots ; while others attribute the mis- 

 chief to exhaustion of the soil and neglect of weed- 

 ing.— PtoHters' Gazette, March 2nd. 



Wheat Mildew.— Mr. E. C. Buck, C. 8. Secretary 

 to the Government of India, Revenue and Agricultural 

 Department (Agriculture), wrote to the Secretary to 

 the Government of Madras on 19th February as fol- 

 lows :— "I am directed to forward, for information and 

 for distribution, through the Agricultural Department, 

 to Revenue Officers, Agricultural Societies and others, 

 twenty-five copies of a note 'on wheat mildew,' ob- 

 tained from the Journal of the Royal Agricultural 

 Society of England. I am at the same time to request 

 that, with the permission of His Excellency the 

 Governor in Council, inquiries may be instituted as to 

 whether, as has sometimes been alleged, rust is more 

 common in fields in which mustard is grown than 

 elsewhere. The Government of India desires that the 

 results of these inquiries, together with any additional 

 information which may be obtained on the subject of 

 rust iu India, may be hereafter communicated to it." 

 We shall give a summary of the note on wheat mildew 

 in the Ttopical AgricuUuriat, 



SuGAE. — A writer in the New Orleans Times-Democrat 

 estimates that 200 acres of cane, yielding 20 tons of cane 

 per acre, will give 363,000 lb. of sugar worth 5 cents per 

 lb. and 297,000 lb. of molasses worth 2J cents per lb., the 

 whole crop bringing S25.575. This is $127 per acre, which 

 is two or three times as much as the crops in the West 

 pay. He estimates, also, that with the improved proceises in 

 grinding, pressing and boiUng, the crop of cane on 200 acres 

 can be made to yield $45,890, or S229 per acre.— Bio I^Tews. 

 Gheen Manueing and Nitrates are thus noticed in 

 the Madras Model Farm Report: — Further experience 

 shows, that in deaUug with the very sandy soUs of the 

 Farm, "Green Manuring" is, perhaps, the most success- 

 ful means of improvement. The practice, now adopted, 

 is, in the hot season, when the weather is showery, to 

 sow with horse-gram a large area of the land without 

 crop, the produce, either to be grazed by sheep folded on 

 the laud, or ploughed into the ground as gieen manm-e. 

 There is, in most years, enough rain in June and July, 

 to admit of this practice being carried out, though not,- 

 enough for a regular crop to be matured, and secured, 

 before the north-east rains set in. During the long preced- 

 ing dry season, nitrification occurs in these soils to a very 

 considerable extent, for though they are deficient in lime, 

 they contain an abundance of soda, and this base is 

 utilized in forming nitrates, and these being so very soluble 

 would, if left in the land, be washed out, by the heavy 

 rain of the monsoon; but when horse-gram is sown on 

 the land, it greedily feeds on these nitrates, which, be- 

 coming worked up in organic combinations, are stored safely 

 against removal by heavy rain. There must be an enormous 

 waste of nitrates in this country when, after a very long 

 dry season, heavy rains occur, as at the beginning of a 

 monsoon. This shows the necessity for getting in the seed, 

 as early as possible at seed time, before the setting in 

 of the heavy monsoon rains, in order that the yomig plants 

 may take up the nitrates and hold them safe. It has, 

 in Europe, been repeatedly shown that during a year, as 

 much as 40 lb. of nitrates per acre may be formed and 

 stored in a good properly worked soil. Nitrates are so 

 extremely valuable, the careful farmer should use every 

 endeavour to utiUze them thoroughly; and, the plan before 

 suggested is, perhaps, the best that can be adopted. 



Germination of Coconuts. — Coconut cidtivators iu 

 Oeylon will be interested in the following account of ex- 

 periments on the Madras Farm: — Attention having been 

 recently directed, in several scientific journals, to the 

 possibiUty of hastening the germination of hard husked 

 seeds, by steeping them in solutions of different salts and 

 acids, especially in solutions of sulphuric acid, an experi- 

 ment was made to test whether the germination of cocoanuts 

 could thus be hastened. For the experiment ten fresh 

 cocoanuts were taken, and they were treated as follows : — 

 Experiment. 

 No. 1. — Two nuts, steeped in water. 



2. — „ „ with 5 P.O. of sulphuric acid, 



„ 3.- „ „ with 10 P.O. of „ 



„ 4.— „ „ with 15 P.O. of „ 



„ 5. — „ not steeped. 



The nuts were kept in the water, and solutions, for five 

 days. On the 1st of December last, the whole of the 

 nuts were planted iu a piece of suitable sod. The sod 

 was watered when necessary. On the 12th of March one 

 of the nuts sent up a vigorous shoot, but the others having 

 failed to send up shoots, they were all dug up on the 31st of 

 March, when they were found in the condition stated below: — 

 Experiment. 

 No. 1. — Both nuts had germinated well, and produced 

 vigorous shoots. 

 „ 2, — One nut had germinated, the other was rotten. 

 ^^ 3. — Neither of the nuts had germinated, but both 



were iu good order. 

 „ 4. — One of the nuts was just commencing to germin- 

 ate, both were in good order. 

 „ 5. — One of the nuts wasjust commencing to germin- 

 ate, both were in good order. 

 As far as can be judged from this single experiment, 

 steeping in acid solutions seems to retard rather than to 

 facihtate the germination of cocoanuts, while steeping in 

 pure water hastens germination. The subject will, how- 

 ever, receive further attention, and other experiments will 

 be instituted. 



