252 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1882. 



Silk.— It is reported that in view to promoting 

 the silk industry in this country the Revenue and 

 Agricultural Department have made arrans;emeut8 for 

 supplying such of the local Governments and Ad- 

 miuistrations as are prepared to join in the experi- 

 ment with small quantities of silk-worm eggs of the 

 univoltine variety, for the purposes of silk-worm 

 rearing during the ne.xt cold weather. It has also 

 been suggested to the provincial Governments that 

 if the experiment is to be carried out on a large 

 scale, the extended cultivation of the mulberry should 

 be at once commenced in the localities selected for 

 the trial and for this purpose cuttings of the Morus 

 multicauUs, the kind of mulberry found much the 

 best for the ordinary silk-worm, has been promised 

 for planting during the ensuing cold season. — Bombay 

 Gazette. 



Indian Tea in America and Australia.— 

 Tlie Indian Tea Gazette alludes to a circular letter 

 issued by the Syndicate, dated Calcutta, June 20th, 

 1882. In this most satisfactory document it is stated 

 that inquiries which come from Canada, Baltimore, 

 and the Far West — places hundreds of miles apart 

 [mark that], show that there is more interest taken 

 in Indian teas every week ; and the New York agents 

 write that they are quite confident that a general 

 curiosity to have samples of Indian teas would soon 

 lead to deliveries of considerable importance if they 

 had the teas to offer. In America, we are told that 

 owing to the quantity of Indian tea on hand, the 

 brokers were compelled to spread their sales over 

 April and May, but they say if they had a sufficient 

 supply to keep the tea before buyers, they could have 

 done much better ; for they add that unless they con- 

 served their stock, they would have none to offer in 

 June. It would never do to create a demand, and 

 then be unable to supply it, and the American brok- 

 ers have therefore done wisely to limit sales. But 

 look at tlie resultant drawback. Here you have a 

 market willing and anxious to deal with you, but 

 stocks are insufEcient to enable the trade to buy from 

 you to the extent they would wish. Then as to Aus- 

 tralia, the Melbourne agents write, "Supplies are 

 nothing equal to demand, and are far short of require- 

 ments." Need anything more be said to induce tea 

 owners to support the Syndicate to the fullest extent. 

 And if anything more were wanted, it will be found 

 in the present and probable future low prices of Ind- 

 ian tea in England. We do not wish to unnecess- 

 arily sound a note of alarm, but as the organ and 

 adviser of the Indian Tea Industry, we should be 

 failing in our duty if we did not plainly point out 

 that the present season does not promise to be a 

 successful one as far as London prices are concerned. 

 The heavy stocks at home must and will act pre- 

 judicially, and there is therefore every necessity to 

 ship as much of our tea as we can, to new markets. 

 It may be that high prices will not rule in these 

 new markets, at present ; but we have to face an 

 almost certainty of low prices prevailing this season 

 at home. The less tea, therefore, we send to Mincing 

 Lane, and the more we divert to other places, the 

 better necessarily will be our position. The Melbourne 

 agents write: — "There is not the slightest reason, 

 that we can see, why India should not command 

 half the tea trade of Australasia, which is at present 

 equal to 23,000,000 lb. per annum; but somebody 

 must initiate the trade, to whom immbdiate profits 

 are uot of so much consequence as laying the ground- 

 work of a large, steady, and profitable business in 

 the future." Here is a prospect, and a brilliant 

 one, before us. Let us not fail to take, in time, 

 due advantage of it ; and the way to do it is to 

 strengthen the hands of the Syndicate by adequate 

 supplies of tea. Mr. A. B. IngUs, of Messrs. Begg 

 Dunlop and Co., writing from Melbourne, says : 



"Don't let shipments fall of, as it is most import- 

 ant to keep up a full supply, even in a little sacri- 

 fice in price, to get more people into the trade, 

 until we are quite sure it is established. The con- 

 sumers are everywhere taking to Indian tea, and I 

 think all you have to do is to send plenty of it and 

 watch the quality ;" and a telegram, just received, 

 says "Send more tea." 



They do These Things Better in France. — 

 So far as oyster-growing is concerned, this seems to 

 be case. "Oyster Gardens" have been formed at 

 Auray, in the Department of Morbihan, which in 1S76 

 yielded 7,000,000, and in 1880, 33,000,000 oysters. The 

 Abb6 Bounetard, parish priest of La Teste, near Arca- 

 chon, has invested an artificial system of cultivation, 

 and the results are so rem.arkable that out of 151,000,000 

 oysters consumed in France last year, 97,000,000 were 

 produced under hia system. — Public Opinion. 



Weather and Cinchona : Lower Ambac.amuwa; 28th 

 July. — It has been raining for two weeks now almost 

 incessantly. The storm is accompanied with thunder 

 since today, and the rainfall is heavier. Portions of 

 the estate exposed to the monsoon wind rapidly harden 

 what little flush they put forth. Pruning is the 

 order of the day and planting of course. In a field of 

 about 20,000 sucoirubras three years old there is hardly 

 a failure of 5 per cent, in the cofifee under various 

 aspects and situations. But in a clearing of 5 acres 

 virgin soil, and with no other product, growing trees 

 of the same age have succumbed cent per cent. Year 

 after year they died out during the monsoon from 

 damp. They are not wind-blown. This establishes 

 what you say that cinchonas should thrive among tea, 

 what with the long taproots to take up the moisture. 



Plant-Food. — A discovery, which may have some 

 influence on the preparation of artificial manures, 

 has just been made. A plant does not draw its minei'al 

 food from a fully -prepared nutritive solution, but pre- 

 pares it itself by the direct action of its own cells 

 with the jjarticles of the soil where the food is stored 

 up. M. Petermann has read a paper before the Belgi- 

 an Academy in connexion with this subject, show- 

 ing that the proper way of discovering what nutritive 

 substances soils contain is dialysis rather than analysis. 

 He shows that arable soils yield to distilled water, 

 from which it is separated by a thin vegetable mem- 

 brane, lime, magnesia, ferric oxide, potash, soda, 

 chlorine, sulphuric acid, silicic acid, phosphoric acid, 

 and even nitric acid. Arable soils, therefore, contain 

 organic matters which easily pass through such a mem- 

 brane as a cell-wall. — Atistralasian. 



CoORG, August 1st. — We are having over here one 

 of the heaviest monsoons there has ever been : rivers 

 flooded, bridges carried away, and tanks bursting on all 

 sides. The monsoon came in very lamblike indeed. 

 As for the first few days we had only a slight drizzle 

 and splendid weather for planting, then it gradually 

 increased in fury, blowing regular g«les of wind for 

 over a week, during which time we had more than 

 21 inches of rain ; that is nothing however to the 

 amount an estate in the Wynaad registered during the 

 same week, i. e., 51 inches.* However there is one 

 blessing ; we shall all I think get good clearings and 

 good crops this year. Cinchona is getting on very well, 

 especially in the Ghauts, but I think that is about 

 the only other new protluct we have tried as yet. I 

 am afraid we are not such a persevering lot as you 

 over in Ceylon. One or two have tried cocoa, but with 

 little or no success, though I see no reason why it 

 should not get on as well in Coorg as in Ceylon. I ex- 

 pect a heavy dose of leaf-disease would bring us all 

 to our senses and make us begin to think there are 

 other things worth growing besides cofifee. — L. J". P. 



* An average of nearly 74 inches per diem. — Ed. 



