362 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[October i, 1882. 



in the hantls of natives. The palm trees .so rultivated 

 bore, and they .still bear, several hundred nuts yearly.* • 

 Estimates were made, and it was proved beyond question, 

 that any one who would wait twenty years could make 

 his fortune by planting a cocoa nut estate. Many estates 

 were planted, and some have given a fair return for the 

 . money sunk, but no fortunes have been made. The simple 

 fact is, that with all care and attention, the trees thus 

 planted out on estates do not bear at all as those planted 

 about native dwellings. In place of gathering a hundred nuts 

 per tree yearly, the crops dwindle down to a miserable four 

 or five ; or, as in one case of which we have heard, to two I 

 We should be glad to learn a little more as to the 

 system on which the cultivation of the Sago Palm is at 

 present carried on iu Sarawak, whence it seems tliat 7,000 

 tons of sago flour are e\en now exported yearly, and where 

 the cultivatiou and manufacture already aiford a steady 

 industry to some thousands of people. — Planters' Ga:ette. 

 [Oas.sava growing has already been overdone in the 

 Straits and there is danger of the same result in regard 

 to Sago, unless the article can be produced cheaply enough 

 to be used as food for calves. — Ed.] 



MR. SIMMONDS, COMPILER OF THE BOOK ON 

 " TROPICAL AGRICULTURE," IN CORRECTION. 



7'o the Editor of the " Tropical Ayriculturist." 

 Crystal Palace, Sydenham, March 31st, 1882. 



Dear Sir, — In a letter iu the March number of the 

 Tropical Agriculturist, p. 817, from Mr. H. Cottam, I 

 notice a serious charge, which I trust, you will allow 

 me to I'eply to. Mr. Cottam states that in my 

 "wonderful book on tropical agriculture the outturn 

 of coffee of the world is by a misprint given at one 

 million instead of ten million cwt." I immediately 

 turned to my book and could not trace this error. 



My words are: — "Taking the production at jiresent 

 at 13,000,000 (thirteen million hundredweights) which 

 is certamly within the mark." This was, of course, 

 to a great degi'ee an estimate. But then I gave sub- 

 sequently the actual statistics of production for tlie 

 year 1875 made up from official returns, amounting to 

 11,338,530 cwt. (eleven 'millions three hundred and 

 thirty-eight thousand five hundred and thirty hundred- 

 weights). My book was published in 1877, and yet the 

 figures agi-ee tolerably well with your estimate in your 

 Handbook prmted several years afterwards "of 11 

 million cwt. as the quantity exported, the producing 

 countries consuuriug three- millions more." 



I am sorry to find from your editorial note that " my 

 book has a number of gross errors." Covering as it 

 does so large a field of observation and reasoning in 

 many instances on questionable data, I could not pos- 

 sibly be always so well-mformed as those locally con- 

 versant, but I took the greatest trouble and pains in 

 getting at my facts, and endeavoured to lay a found- 

 ation on which others, more experienced, could estunate 

 and correct the opinions and statements I advanced. — 

 Your obdt. servant, P. L. SIMMONDS. 



[We regret very much the long delay which has 

 occurred in publishing the above letter, l:>ut the fact 

 is we had mislaid the particular copy of Mr. Sim- 

 nionds' useful and elaborate compendium on "Tropical 

 Agriculture," on the margin of which we had made 

 notes of some gross errors occurring in the pages re- 

 ferring to coffee ; we do not blame Mr. Simmonds for 

 these, for it would be a marvel indeed, if dealing with 

 so wide a subject, he could have secured accuracy 

 in reference to every country and product treated 

 of in his book. We do not know where Mr. Cottam got 

 the million cwt. he . ef erred to but here are the passages 

 noted by us wdiich w^e have no doubt Mr. Simmonds will 

 correct when the next edition of his volume is called 



• It is the rarest thing, if possible, to see a coconut 

 palm which in one year has pc'rffeeted 200 fruits. Forty 

 is » high average.— Ed. 



for : — Page 34, the export of coffee from Java in 1869 

 is given at 3,299,000 cwt., then follows: — " the crops 

 were defective from 1864 to 1867. Tlie export has 

 occasionally reached 170,000,000 //'." This is ridiculous 

 — 170 millions lb. equallmg li million cwt. ; while, 

 as Mr. Simmonds shows in two lines above, the ex- 

 port has occasionally reached over 3 millions. On 

 the next page, 35, there is a statement about 126 

 millions of coffee trees in bearing in Sumatra giving 

 about 100,000 cwt. of crop (in 1872), or 1 cwt. per 

 acre, and not much more in 1874, which we regard 

 as absurd : probably the figures represent the export 

 and not the yield. Leaf-disease had not then affected 

 coffee in tliat quarter. On page 57, Mr. Simmonds will 

 find some blundering under Africa where the eastern 

 and western coasts and islands are put down for a 

 production of 2 millions lb., while St. Thomas alone 

 is credited with If million of this. On page 59, it 

 is said Liberian coffee will enable planters to pursue 

 their calling "at elevations above the fever line"; 

 quite the contrary being the case. We have marked 

 "absurd" opposite the statement on page 63, that 

 in 1844, 20 millions sterling were invested in coffee 

 estates in .Jamaica. We have queried and we doubt the 

 statement on page 64 that Cuba imports large quanti- 

 ties of coffee from Porto Rico; also that "the coffee 

 plant is a native of this continent, " meaning America, 

 given on page 65. The information about coffee ex- 

 ports from Brazil on pages 71-2, is given iu a very 

 misleading way. — The foregoing is simply a transcript of 

 our pencilled marghial notes made in 1878. Many 

 years before that, we had given in our Handbooks estim- 

 ates of the total production and consumption of coffee. 

 But, after all, as we have said, Sinmronds' is a very 

 useful book, and, as a proof of our interest in it, 

 we may say that more copies have probably been 

 disseminated through our agency in Ceylon than iir any 

 other tropical colony. But a serious complaint agahist 

 the compiler remains,— that of wholesale appropriation 

 without acknowledgment. For instance, the larger por- 

 tion of an Essay oh Tea cultivation, written for the 

 Ceylon Observer, without a single word as to the soui-ce 

 whence it was derived. That is only a specimen.— Ed.] 



INDIA ;-CROP AND WEATHER REPORT. 



For the Weel: Ending the 5th September 1SS3, 

 General Remarks.— Good rain has fallen throughout 

 the Madras Presidency ; prospects of standing crops 

 are good, and harvesting has commenced in a few 

 places. In Coorg the monsoon has set in again ; rice 

 and rajii ciops aru doing well. In the Mjsore State, 

 in the Nizam's Territories, and the Berars there has 

 been light rain, except in Hyderabad vfhere it has 

 been heavier ; standing crnps are in good condition and 

 prospects are favourable. In the Bombay Presidency good 

 rain has fallei ill all districts except Guzerat, and has 

 been beneficial to standing crops ; parts of the Guzerat 

 division are iu need of more rain ; locusts are reported 

 from a few places. In the Central Provinces the kharif 

 crops have benefited by the recent break in the rains 

 and are promising well ; weeding operations are in 

 progress and occasional showers are occurring. 



In Central Induv and Rajputaua rain has been re- 

 ported from every State, except Sirohi, Jeypore, and 

 the British district of Ajmere, and prospects are 

 favourable everywhere except m Sirohi. Rain has 

 also beeu gen^-ral throughout the Punjab, except in 

 Hissai- and Prshawar. The North-Western Provmces 

 and Ondh Imvc had mure or less good rain in all dis- 

 tricts ; early crops are being cut, and prospects of all 

 other crops are good; more rain is now wanted m 

 piirt of Luckuow only. In Beugal rain in varymg 

 qnautities l.as fallen in all districts ; prospects of the 

 winter rice crops have improved, jute and sugarcane 



