September i, 1882.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



257 



substances, though not of an injurious character to 

 healtb, will be to have fixed standards beyond which 

 the manufacturer connot go. The over-adultcratiou of 

 whisky wilh water is not injurious to health, but still 

 the party adding too much water can be |)rosecuted 

 and cDUviciid ; the over-adulieration of coffee with 

 chicory may not bo injurious to health, but like the 

 publican, the mercliant excessively adulterating it 

 should be liable to conviction. 



Date cofl'ec sharcliolilers and dealers in other abomin- 

 atious are naturally jubilant over the uuexpected hark- 

 ing-hack of the Ciovernment ; hut they may not he 

 able to exult louf;. The fight in so good a cause must 

 be strenuously maiutatoed, and the day cannot be far 

 off when coffee in England will be placed on exactly 

 the same footing as tea. 



LAYING POOR LAND TO PEKMANENT PASTURE. 



Some down land on the chalk ridge between- Guildford 

 and Dorkiug was ploughed up some years since. It had 

 been worth 2s. 6d. an acre in down, and, as it proved to 

 be worth less than nothing in arable, it was allowed to 

 revert to its original condition as a sheep run, and is 

 now again worth about half-a-crown an acre as before. 

 I need hardly say that no seeds were sown, aud no ex- 

 pense incurred in laying this laud down ; and although 

 the ** facts and figiu:es " which yom- correspondent inquires 

 for cannot, I fear, be accurately arrived at, he wiU per- 

 haps find no difficulty in admitting that down land, worth 

 2s. 6d. an acre, cannot very readily be rendered more 

 productive, and would hardly pay the cost of much arti- 

 ficial treatment. I do not dispute that the 4,700,000 acres 

 of cultivated land in Scotland might be increased profitably 

 by the culture of some portion of the 15,000,000 acres 

 of mountains, moors, aud wastes, and that part of the 

 8,000,000 acres of waste or wild land in England might 

 also be profitably cultivated ; but the iuclosure of un- 

 cultivated land seems for the present to have reached its 

 limit, and at any rate there are many millions of acres 

 whose appropriate crops are those which exti'act their 

 necessary nutriment slowly from poor soils without cult- 

 ivation — such as heather and the coarser varieties of grass. 



No one doubts the potency of dung, and Mr. L.awes, 

 who supplies cotton cake ad libitum to .his cattle ou the new 

 pastiires, would be the last person to deny the propriety of 

 manuring grass lands in general ; but when I recall the 

 conduct of the grasses in the trial plots at Rothamsted and 

 elsewhere, I can understand his doubts on the propriety of 

 spending money for tillage and seed in the case of poor 

 land like that whieii he described. 



The bound.ary between land which will pay for cultiv- 

 ation and that which must be allowed, under present 

 circumstances, to revert to its natural herbage, depends 

 on various conditions, and partly, no doubt, on the slcill 

 of the occupier. Such a boundary exists, however, aud 

 the area of uncultivated land seems not unlikely to be 

 enlarged. — Heney E\-eeshed. — F'eld. 



SUGAR: OFFICIAL EETLTRN OF THE CROPS OF 

 M.ACKAY DISTRICT, QUEENSLAND, 

 FOR 1881-1882. 

 SuGAB.— On March 31st, 1832, there were 9,801 acres of 

 land under cane, this acreage being held or farmed by 109 

 growers. Of the acreage it is estimated that 8,895 acres 

 will be brought to the mills during the ensuing crushing 

 season, and the crop estimated to be produced therefore 

 is put down at about 8,000 tons, which amount, it will be 

 seen, provides for a return of less than one ton per acre. 

 VTe have strong hopes that this low estimate will be ex- 

 ceeded, ami that the forthcoming crop will reach nine, if 

 not ten, thousand tons, Init we quote the estimate as put 

 down in the return, merely remarking that the growers as a 

 rule prefer to make their estimates so as to keep them- 

 selves on the safe side. So much for the prospuct for 

 the coming crop, and we now turn to that part of the 

 33 



retvu-n which refers to the past season. From this we 

 learn th.at 7,167 acres of cane were cut and the produce 

 manipulated in the 19 mills which were last year in oper- 

 ation, the result therefrom being 10,713 tons of sugar, 

 and 407,020 gallons of molasses. A reduction of these 

 figures gives a very satisfactory result for the season's 

 operations as far as the return of sugar to the acre. This 

 may be stated at 30 cwt., which .shows a decided advance 

 over the average of the pre\'ious year, which was only 

 25cwt. 2qr. The number of g.allons of molasses to the 

 ton of sugar will be seen to be just 40, that of the 

 previous crushing being 39. There is no doubt that the 

 prospect for the coming season would have been ^puch 

 Ijrighter, had we not, in common %vith the whole of the 

 colonies, suffered from the drought during the end of the last 

 and the beginning of this year, but at the same time we have 

 cause for congratulation in possossiug the knowledge that 

 during the present year the increase in the acreage of 

 cane will be very large ; estimate it to be at least 50 per 

 cent, and consequently we the returns for 1883 may con- 

 fidently be looked forward to as likely to be very good 

 indeed, provided there is anything like a fairly good season. 

 That there will be ample means for taking off this in- 

 creased crop there can be no question, for we remark that 

 it is noted in the return that there are no less than 10 

 mills in course of erection, and we learn privately that 

 not one of these new mills has a capacity of less than 

 500 tons in a season, most of them in fact being what 

 are generally spoken of as thousand ton mills. Such being 

 the case we have no need to fear any difficulty in the 

 way of taking off of the crop of 1883. — Mackuy (Queensland.) 

 Standard. 



THE PLAGUE OF CATERPILLARS 

 IN ENGLAND. 



(to the editor of the "spectator.") 



Sib, — I doubt if the interesting old records quoted by 

 your correspondent throw much real light on this matter. 

 Till lately, there were no framed observers of natural phen- 

 omena, and there was so little knowledge of their causes, 

 that few could have been competeut to judge whether one 

 cause was more probable than another. Take, for exam- 

 ple, the statement that, " In 1499, in Germany, vegetation 

 was destroyed by blight and caterpillars together." I should 

 ask (if there were any one to answer). What bUght and 

 what caterpillars? Of caterpillars, there arc hunflreds of 

 different kinds that prey on vegetation, many with wideh' 

 different habits ; and as to " blight," that may be described 

 as a term used by practical gardeners to make their em- 

 ployers believe they know all about it, when anything has 

 injiu:ed vegetation. It is analogous to the railway guard's 

 answer to the passenger who asks why the train is stopped, 

 and is told, "Because the signals are ag.ainst us," If the tender 

 shoots curl up, or the rosebuds, instead of opening, turn brown, 

 or the leaves look mildewed and spotted, or there is a great 

 abundance of aphides, or hairy black flies, the gardener 

 has one confident e.xplanation, " It is a blight," and he 

 probably adds something in a mysterious tone about the 

 east wind having brought it. As to Schenkius's statement 

 that the winter having been so severe as to kill nearly 

 all the brute creation, the simshine next summer was so 

 hot as to set the trees on fire, — I do not believe Schenkius. 

 I think it will be by such skilled and careful observations 

 as those of Jliss Eleanor Ormerod that we shall arrive at 

 adequiite knowledge on the subject. In the meantime, 

 may I venture to offer the following general considerations; — 



1. Since the number of individuals, on the average, 

 rem.ains tlie same, an enormous majority (say, ninety-nine 

 hundredths) die without continuing their species. 2. Every 

 insect has four stages to pass through in a year, sometimes 

 in b.alf a year or less, viz., egg, caterpillar, pupa, and winged 

 insect; it is in the caterpillar stage that all the eating is, 

 done. 3. The caterpillar and the winged state, being the 

 stages of exposure, are those in which most of the thinning 

 takes place; and the latter is the more important stage in 

 this respect, because by the time a caterpillar has grown 

 large enough to be made a satisfactory meal of, it has 

 already done much mischief. 4. In the caterpillar stage, 

 the thinning effected by birds, tree-bugs, carnivorous cater- 



