THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1882. 



lasl and incomparably the best edition of Polo that 

 has ever been published) and had turned to P. CXXXX 

 of t\v compendious introduction, he would have found 

 the fcillowinj; passage :—" In no respect is his book 

 so defective as in regard to the Chinese manners 

 and peculiarities. The use of tea, though he travelled 

 through the tea districts of Fokien, is nerer mentioned." 

 Three Chapters (LXXX— LXXXII) are devoted 

 to the " Kingdom of Fuju" [Foochow] and its cities ; 

 yet, though we have notices of ginger, sugar, and 

 camphor, of silk, cotton and spices, there is neither 

 here nor elsewhere, anything said, or hinted, about tea. 

 We have not the slightest idea that anything that we 

 can say will discourage this style of quotation. We 

 know London newspaper people too well for that. 

 If we were not opposed, on grounds of political 

 economy, to betting, we should be willing to lay a 

 wager that the very next time one of the English or 

 American newspapers launches into an essay upon the 

 antiquity, virtues, and so forth of this plant, we shall 

 meet again the calm affirmation that " Marco Polo the 

 famous medii-eval traveller also distinctly mentions 

 the tea-plant in his travels in the East." 



PLANTING EXPERIENCES IN .JAVA. 



( Extracts from a letter written hy mi ex-Ceylon X'lo-nter, 

 who lately 2^roceeded to Java.) 



The climate here is fearfully damp, and we have had 

 rain nearly every day for the last three months : in 

 fact, I should say the place was better adapted for 

 tea than for coffee ; no one seems to know when we 

 ought to get the hot weather ! 



The Javanese lingo is something awful ; the coolies 

 speak high Javanese to you, and you have to talk to 

 them in the low. There are different races of coolies 

 ill dift'ereut parts of the island, who speak Malay, Sun- 

 danese, Madurese, &c., &c. So that, if you change to 

 another district, you very probably have to learn an- 

 ^oher language, although you can generally get on with 

 Malay by working Malay mandors, who take the place 

 of Ceylon kangauies. 



Chinese are by far the best workers we have here, 

 but Government will not allow them to work in the 

 interior. The Javanese are the laziest lot of scamps I 

 ever saw, and do only about a thii-d of a good Tamil 

 cooly ; they are very much like the Sinhalese in one 

 respect and fight shy of a shower of rain. If it lasts 

 for about an hour, off they goto their huts. They get 

 40c per day, and we have to give them curry and rice, 

 and cook and carry it to the gentlemen in the field. 

 Each of these aristocrats has his cigarette case, cigarettes, 

 and box of matches, wliich lie always takes with him 

 to the field and smokes at all hours of the day ; they 

 always buy their cigarettes ready-made. It 's rather 

 amusing to see them after their lunch at 11-30 a. m., 

 pull out their cigarette cases, and discuss, probably, 

 politics : how I should like to have a hundred Rania- 

 swainies here. 



The bungalows are built solely of bamboo, split bamboo 

 for the roof, and plaited bamboo for the walls; so that, 

 when there is a breeze, it Ijlows through all your rooms, 

 wMch is not particularly pleasant. The bungalows 

 ai'e all on the gi-ound floor and are always damp. When 

 it rains, your floor is all over small puddles, for the 

 roof is anytliing but watertight. 



Coolies are mustered at daybreak and go on work- 

 ing until dark, 'i he day's routine here is very different 

 from that of Ceylon : we rise at 6 a.m., have cofl'ee 

 and read the papers, have a bath and breakfast about 

 9-30, go out to ^^■ol■k and come in at \2, liave rice 

 table and a nap, then coffee and go out again about "2 

 and work until dark. Dinner at any time up to 9 o'clock. 

 I live chiefly on cuixy and rice. No meat at all, for 

 it takes two days coming here, and by the tune it 

 arrives is always tainted and unlit for food. 



The coolies are paid thi-ee times a month, 10th, 20th, 

 and last of the mouth, on which days there is no 

 work, and these tluee days are the only holidays we 

 have, for we work on Sundays also. 



The mosquitoes here are something awful, and the 

 coffee swarms with them, and, unless you keep on smok- 

 ing like a chimney, you get worried to death. I be- 

 lieve the reason is that the place is one mass of weeds, 

 and only gets hacked over -ivith a mamotie or sickle 

 every two months. So the animals have plenty of time 

 to increase and multiply. 



The ordinary cofl'ee borer has been attackuig cinchona 

 lately ; I do not think I ever heard of this in Ceylon. 



COFFEE LEAF-DISEASE. 



Last night Mr, Marshall Ward lectured before the 

 Linnajan Society on coffee leaf-disease. Your agents 

 having been requested by me to send a shorthand 

 reporter to attend the meeting, you may possibly be 

 furnished with his extended report by this mail ; 

 but, as the transcript of his notes may not be ready, 

 it will, perhaps, be as well to give you my own re- 

 collection of Mr. Ward's address. He did not read the 

 whole of his paper, which is a lengthy one, and will, 

 of course, be eventually published iu the Journal of 

 Transactions. Mr. Ward contented himself with sketch- 

 ing the life-history of the disease, illustrating his 

 subject by chalk sketches on the black-board. He 

 proceeded to describe how the spore of the fungus 

 adhered to the leaf, and, germinating, threw out its 

 sucker, which, piercing the leaf, formed the mycelium 

 within it. Then he .showed how from these mycelia 

 the red rust was formed on the lower side of the leaf, 

 which in its turn proceeded to produce fresh spores. 

 It was remarkable, he said, how accurately it was 

 possible to determine the time from the settlement 

 of the spore to the development of the rust. He 

 narrated the result of his experiments with coffee 

 plants from Jamaica, and how soon thej' took and 

 developed the disease ; both when planted out or ai'ti- 

 fioially inoculated. He concluded by saying that, 

 although he could not iironounce the discovery of 

 any cure, he had at least succeeded in establishing 

 the life-history of the disease. Mr. Ward only 

 spoke for about twenty minutes and then sat down. 

 Mr. Thiselton Dyer said that he felt the most 

 entire coutidence in Mr. Ward's experiments and 

 the results he had deduced from them. The inform- 

 ation obtained •was of a most important character, 

 and might do something to stay the great falling- 

 otf in coffee exports from Ceylon, as to which he 

 quoted figures. He said Mr. Ward's task hud been 

 a most difficult one, for he had to overcome and 

 dispose of all sorti of previously conceived theories, 

 such as that tlic disease was cmstitutioual and took 

 its rise from the very roots of the tree. He must say, 

 however, that, as regards the approximation to any 

 system of cuie, he much feared i he question was pretty 

 much where it rested b^'fore Mr. Ward went out to 

 Ceylon. From Mr. Ward's invtstigatious it was evid- 

 ent that the development of the disease, from the 

 lodgment of the spore to the completion of the evil, 

 was exceediugl.v rapid. Too much so, he feared, to 

 enable remedial measures to have any effect, and he 

 could not but dread that a cure would be as undiscover- 

 able as has been one for the potato-disease. It was 

 possible, he tlunight, that screens of tliickly planted 

 trees against the direction of prevailing winds might 

 be ,s ivioi able in arr.tting tlie carnage of spores 

 by tlifiir agency, or at all events might consider- 

 ably filter them off. He siid Dr. Trinun's efficient 

 ami cordiiil aid to Mr. Ward should be acknowledged, 

 Mr. Carruthers, of the liritish Museum, tlien rose, 

 and sail! tliat he considered Mr. Wiird had dene much 

 towards tilling up the gap in their knowledge of this 



