August i, 1S82,] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



167 



FuKL. — The Madras Mail 'believes that India's 

 great need is an abundant supply of cheap fuel, nhicli 

 was once cheap and abundant ; but the waBtefid habits 

 of the natives, who recklessly cut down shrubs and 

 bushes a« soon as they had grown a foot or two iu 

 heifiht, have completely exhausted the supply. For 

 want of this the smelting of iion, which was once 

 largely carried on in many districts, has almost died 

 out ; and other industries, such as pottery, f'lr which 

 artitical heat is indispensable, are also lilielj to become 

 extinct. The Government has already paid some at- 

 tention to the matter by the creation of what are known 

 as village forest lands. 



Coffee Leaf Fungus. — (Linnsean Society) Mr. F. 

 Crisp, Treasurer, in the chair. — Mr. M. Ward 

 read a paper on his ' Researches on the Life 

 History of Hemileia vaslatrix, the Fungus of the C' fFee 

 leuf Disease. ' The phenomena attendant thereou show 

 great analogy to those of the Uredine fungi. The 

 spores, under favourable conditions, viz., moisture, a 

 due supply of oxygen, and a temperature of 75° F., 

 usuallj- germinate in from twelve to twenty- four hours. 

 Complete infection, or establishment of the mycelium 

 in the intercellular passages of the leaf, occurs about the 

 tliird day after the formation of tie germinal tubes. 

 The so-called yellow spot, or ordinary cutward visible 

 appearance of the disease, manifests itself about the 

 fourteenth or fifteenth day, but may be delayed, ils 

 development and course being dependent on secondary 

 causes, suoh as atmospheric conditions, monsoons, age 

 of the coffee leaf, &c. By watching the progress of the 

 spots it has been ascertained that the spores therefrom 

 may be continuously produced for from seven to eleven 

 weeks, or even more. Some 150,000 spores have been 

 estimated as present iu one yellow cluster, and as 127 

 di.sease spots have been counted in one pair of leaves, 

 the quantity of spores thus regularly produced must 

 be enormous. According to amount of diseased spots 

 the sooner the leaf falls, and though young leaves arise 

 the fruit-bearing qualities of the plant necessarily are 

 seriously interfered with. The various sorts of coffee 

 plant are all liable to infection ; 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 artiticial cultiv- 

 ation. — Aihenmum. 



WoESE AND WoESE "WEEDS. — Sometime ago we men- 

 tioned the fact that the flowers of the Ox-Eye Daisy 

 were iu such demand by the city florists, that several 

 persons were engaged in forcing them, in order to get 

 them into bloom iu early spring, at wliich time they were 

 sold at a price sufficiently high to pay for the labor ex- 

 pended, AVhen the plants came into flower in the fields, 

 they were offered at every street corner, and were not 

 much in demand. Later, we have seen in the florists' 

 windows, clusters of the flowers of a still worse weed, 

 the Toad-flax (Linaria i-u/t/aris), also called " Butter and 

 Eggs," and in some localities " Ranisted weed." This is 

 now justly regarded as one of the worst weeds of oiu' 

 farms, yet the writer can recollect when it was a favor- 

 ite garden plant. Clusters of this were generally offered 

 by the Broadway florists. Another weed ajppeared later 

 in the windows, and noticeable from the fact that it is 

 a native. The two plants mentioned above are intro- 

 duced from abroad, as are the great majority of the 

 weeds of our fields and gardens, but in Eudbeckia hirta, 

 the '• Thorny cone-flower," we have an undeniable n.-itive. 

 This is supi>osed to have been brought from the AVest 

 in baled hay; at all events it is now thoroughly distrib- 

 uted tlu-oughout the meadows and pastures of the East- 

 ern States ; it has come to stay, and makes itselfs more 

 thoroughly at home from year to year. Like tlie Ox-Eye 

 Daisy, it belongs to the great Sunflower family. It is 

 much larger and coarser than that ; its flowers are much 

 larger, with yellow rays, and the central portion, or disk, 

 of so dark a purple that it is almost black. The .stems 

 and fohage are very coarse and beset with rough haii-s. 



To see this miserable weed, the increase of ,vhich we 

 have watched with dismay, offered for sale, and to see 

 large clusters of it in the belts of ladies who had pur- 

 chased it, produced a sensation far from pleasing. It 

 wiU be cm-ions to watch what effect this sudden bring- 

 ing into favor of some of om- most pernicious weeds 

 mil have upon the agricultiu-e of the counti-y. — Ibid. 



Important Sale of a Plantation.— We are gl.id 

 to learn that Mr, Kettleiiell, who was here re- 

 cently in his yacht, besides investing in Cinchona pro- 

 perty in the Maskeliya district, lias, through his local 

 agents, purchased the Great Valley estate iu Lower 

 Hewaheta for the sum of £14,000 cash with expend- 

 iture from 1st April. Great Valley has been the scene 

 of extended cultivation with cinchona under the direc- 

 tion of Mr. E. S. Grigeon and the active superintendence 

 of Mr. R. P. Hart, and the plantation has generally been 

 considered as worth a good deal more than the price 

 paid for it. The parties selling have certainly not made 

 their fortui e out of it, aud the congratulations are rather 

 to be extended ti> the pu' chaser on the good bargain 

 he has made. 



Cinchona Property.— If the Agents of Mr. Kettle- 

 well or any other capitalist want to get a hold of a 

 valuable cinchona property, they ought to look after 

 the sale advertised in auother column. The Kenmare 

 estate referred to has been generally regarded as a 

 most promising place, and the neighbourhood is famous 

 for its healthy growth of the usually uncertain but 

 valuable crown bark tree. A correspondent WTites : 



— " Mr. T is losing a splendid property just as 



it is going to give good crops in cinchona bark ; hard 

 lines is no name for it. I believe it wUl go for 

 R33,000 if there is no competition ; here 's a chance 

 for men with a little money." — According to the ad- 

 vertisement there is even now 20,000 lb. of cinchona 

 to be harvested, worth, we suppose, from £2,000 to 

 £3,000 sterling ! 



Tea in Ceylon. — It is reported that the estim- 

 ate of crop from (jalbodde plantation, Andjagarauwa 

 for the coming season is 5j maunds — say 550 lb. — per 

 acre ! The tea cannot be more than five years old : 

 when it was between thi-ee and four years the yield was 

 equal to 400 lb. per acre. From the Kalutara district 

 we learn that a 2^ year old clearing is estimated to 

 give over 3 maunds, and the prospects of tea in this 

 moist part of the lowcouutry are excellent. On 

 Mipitykande, Yatiyautota, the crop for six months of 

 tea now only 2i years old, has been equal to 160 lb. an 

 acre and for the coming year, 400 lb. per acre will pro- 

 bably be exceeded. To refer to a fourth district, we 

 leai-u that some tea from Agar's Land, Balangoda, 

 has been pronounced by a home authority as equal to 

 the best Darjiling which is quoted 3s 8d per lb. This 

 gentleman reports : — " I never tasted any tea, India 

 " or China, equal to it for delicacy of flavour and 

 " for strength. The tea plant being a camellia, I \iouder 

 ' ' that Ceylon can grow it, as it does best in a cool 

 " atmosphere, I fancy the higher it is grown with you 

 ' ' (as in the case of Ai'abian coflee and cinchona) the 

 " richer the produce." Witli the. very suitable clim- 

 ate, easy transport and cheap labour enjoyed by the 

 tea planter in Ceylon, he is almost certain to beat 

 competitors in India, in the price at which he can 

 ship his produce. But, cheap as labour is, machinery 

 is still more economical and effectual for the pre- 

 paring department — a rolling machine for instance 

 doing with 4 coolies what it requires 40 to complete 

 without. When tea rolling, drying, aud sifting machines 

 are in full operation on all large plantations and in 

 central factories for the service of limited areas under 

 tea, and when men now beginning to umlerstanil tho 

 work, have gained the needful experience, there need 

 be no fear of Ceylon holding its own in tea agai ust 

 pall cometitors. 



