236 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[September i, 1S82. 



BuBDiNG Cinchona. — We call attention to the plant- 

 ing paragraph from Maskeliya (page 249) wherein aplant- 

 er of ex] erience relates his success in " budding " cin- 

 chonas. He has several "buds" coming on well and 

 is coutident that by the use of two punches— the 

 larger one for the piece of ledgeriana or hybrid that 

 is t'< be "planted" into the succirubra icnd the 

 smaller for the hole in the bark— this process will be 

 found much simpler and more successful than graft- 

 ing. In our forcing climate there is no doubt of 

 the facilities presented for budding or grafting and we 

 are only at the beginning of the improved processes 

 which will be devised by Ceylon planters in cultivating 

 and preparing) new products. 



Another Aew and Profit-iblk Prodtjct. — Mr. 

 J. Hollo way, of Wattegama, whatever may be 

 thought of his faith in Cofiea Arabica " properly 

 treated," deserves on all sides credit for his inde- 

 fatigable zeal over new products. A letter lies before 

 us addi-essed to his Colombo Agents, in which he 

 says : — 



" I have sent to your address this day a box 

 containing 4 lb. croton seed. Will you be good enough 

 to send part to the Boston Exhibition (as Maria 

 Estate Ceylon Croton Seed) and test the London or 

 foreign niaiket with the balance. I saw it quoted at 

 70s per cwt. in an English price current. Taking 10 lb. 

 a tree as an average production it will pay well : my 

 two large trees will give me 20 lb. each this jear. 

 The seed grows rapitlly in nursery and stands trans- 

 planting and stumping the same as Arabian coffee, 

 begius to bear at two years old, is a splendid shade, 

 a hardy plant which no insect cares to touch and 

 grows in the jjoorest soil, ll bears all the year round ; 

 once a week a cooly shakes the tree and picks up from 

 the ground what has fallen off ; then drops the pods 

 in the sun, shells them, then gives another drying 

 ■which is all that is required ; the wood of tree is 

 also very tough and stands the wind well." 

 AVe trust the Bostoners (at " the hub of the universe") 

 will appreciate the enterprize of the iiroprietor of 

 Mai'ia estate, and that large orders for Ceylon croton 

 eeed will result from the Exhibition. 



A Model Plaktaiion anu Farm. — We cannot help 

 calling attention to the advertisement offering a 

 Dimbula jilautalion for sale, in our columns today. 

 Unfortunately, plantations are not rare commodities 

 in the market in Ceylon at present : the would-be 

 sellers of cotTee estates far exceed the number of 

 purchasers : — in many cases, it is true, the seller 

 will tell us 



My poverty, but not my will consents. 

 Be that as it may, it must be confessed that there 

 is something unique in the account given of the 

 Holbrook plantation now in the market. What would 

 tile rough and ready planters of thirty or twenty 

 years ago — who.=e horizon was bounded by coffee and 

 collee only — say to the combiuanuu of money-making 

 arrangements on this Holbrook property ? The yield of 

 cofler hassurely been enough, of itself, tosatisfy proprietors 

 du'mg the hard times lately exijerienced ; an average 

 of over 6 cwt. for six years carries us back to the 

 palmiest days of the local enti-rprize ; but what would 

 poor "Sandy JSrown " (of the "Planters' Manual") 

 Bay to the fifty thousand of flonrishing cinchona trees, 

 besides the twelve acref of this product, yielding, from 

 an auuual shaving merely, a crop equal to the richest 

 return from coffee. If. is the dairy produce, however, 

 which liKs chielly arrested our attention, forMr. Saunders 

 seems to have solved the question on Holbrook of 

 maintaining a suitable cattle-manuring establishment 

 for his coBee, with a duo return from the dairy and 

 the butcher. Surely this example can be more widely 

 followed, more especially when ihe railway opens up 

 our highest plateaux to permanent settlers and a multi- 

 tude of visitors. 



CorPEE ON THE Shevaroys. — We hear that the 

 prospects of the cofifee crop on the Shevaroys are this 

 year very fair nnd that, after two rather unfavorable 

 seasons, the planters are likely to get a small return 

 for their labors in the past three years. — M. Standard, 



A Brazilian Coffee Exhibition.— SenorDe Medonca, 

 the Brazilian Consul-General here, has just opened a 

 really creditable exhibition of samples of Brazillian 

 grown coffees. An office at Broadway has been 

 arranged for the display, and when I dropped 

 in there were over 1,000 different samples for 

 many diffeerent plantations and showing the dif- 

 ferences created by care in seed and improved 

 methods of cultivation. The show has been Tisited 

 by the members of the Coffee Exchange who deal 

 largely in "futures" on Rio and they admit that 

 Brazil must greatly benefit her trade by this public 

 exhibition of her staple. Why cannot enterprizing 

 Jamaicans get up such an exhibit here of their pro- 

 ducts ? It would stimulate trade and prove mutually 

 beneficial, — Gall's Jamaica News Letter. 



HEA^T RAINS IN CooRO. — Mercara, 14th July. — 

 Thanks to our enterprizing merchants and shopkeepers 

 both European and native, we have stored up suffici- 

 ent food to last us for a month at least, but the price 

 of provisions has doubled. Raggi for the coffee estate 

 coolies, rice for the Coorgs, and wheaten stuffs for 

 foreigners, can only be procured from those who were 

 wise to have them stored up. Butcher's meat is very 

 little at 8 as. a pound : this means mutton of course. 

 Beef is only to be obtained by going out of the country : 

 in Coorg it is never sold. What is the reason of this 

 famine? I answer, the rains which have been fearful, 

 tremendous and continuous. In the month of June 95 

 inclies fell. In July, to the date of ray letter, 75 inches 

 more, and in one day over 14 inches fell. It is now . 

 found that of the four trunk roads leading into Mercara, 

 not one is paBsnble. The oldest inhabitant, a man who 

 has been in Coorg 14 years, says, he remembers such 

 another monsoon, which was, if anything, worse than 

 this. But it was the yenr before he Came up. — Madras 

 Standard. 



Coffee- Leaf Disease. — Abstract of paper read before 

 the Linnean Society: — "Mr. Marshall Ward read a 

 paper in his researches on the life-history of Heini- 

 Ida vastatr'ix, the fungus of the coffee-leaf disease. 

 The phenomena attendant thereon show great analogy 

 to those of the Uredine fungi. The spores under 

 favonrable conditions, viz., moisture, a due supply of 

 oxygen and a temperatui'e of 75° F., usually germin- 

 ate in from twelve to twenty-four hours. Complete 

 infection or establishnifut of the mycelium in the 

 intercellular j^assages of the leaf occurs about the 

 third day after the formation of the germinal tubes. 

 The so-called yellow spot or ordinary outward vis- 

 ible appearance of the disease, manifests itself about 

 the fourteenth or fifteenth day, but may be delayed ; 

 its development and course being dependant on 

 secondary causes, such as atmospheric conditions, 

 monsoon, age of coffee-leaf, &c. By watching the pro- 

 gress of the spots it has been ascertained that the 

 spores therefrom may be continuously produced for from 

 seveu to eleven weeks or even more. Some 150,000 

 spores have estimated as present in the yellow cliis- 

 terspot, and as 127 disease spots have been counted 

 in tlie pair of leaves, the quiintity of spores thus 

 regularly produced must be enormous. According to 

 the amount of diseased spots, the sooner tbe leaf 

 falls, and though young leaves arise, the fruit-bearing 

 qualities of the plant necessarily are interfered with. 

 The various sorts of coffee plant ore all liable to in- 

 fection ; the only possible remedy is the difficult one 

 of destruction of the spores, and these are supposed 

 originally to have been introduced from the native jungle, 

 and rapidly spread under the favourable conditions 

 of artificial cultivation.". — "Nature," June 15th, 1882 



