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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[December i, 1882. 



male is then taken away and killed. The female 

 finisht'S laying in about fourteen hours and then dies. 

 The eggs are kept carefully in the house, not ex- 

 posed to the sun. In ten days the hatching is com- 

 plete ; ns soon as the worm appears it must be fed 

 with (mulberiy) leaves. The worms must be fed fight 

 times in each day of twenty-four hours. This feed- 

 ing must be continued for a space of twenty days, 

 w..,ii the ...ce,'. .on that on every fifth day they get no 

 food at all. Our old native told us She worm- suffers 

 from fever on these days, i. e. four days in twenty, 

 and no food should be given on the fever days. 

 On the twentieth day the worms are developed into- 

 light yellow wrigylmg be.ists about two inches long. 

 These are fed for a further period of ten days. 

 During this period the.v have no fever. After the 

 tenth dav they are "ripe" and eat nothing more. 

 They are now of a distinctly yellow colour. They 

 are put into a wbeel-like cage, called in Tamil "sen- 

 thuiukum," where ihey are kept for about twenty- 

 four hours. During that timetliey spin the cocoons. 

 A few are now selected to keep up propagation. After 

 ten days the male and female moths emerge front 

 the cocoon and the process recommences. The co- 

 coon from which the moth has come out io due course 

 of nature is useless for spinning purposes. To get 

 the silk, the cocoons are Itept only some six seven or 

 eight days instea'l of ten ; they are then thrown 

 into a boiler containing hot water ; a small fire is 

 kept up to ensure the requisiie temperature, i. c. 

 rather hotter than the ordinary hand can bear, 

 though the practised hand of the operator goes in 

 and out freely. The operator sits on the top of the 

 boiler, selects a couple of good threads and fixes them in 

 the first catch of the spinning machine ; one boy feeds 

 the fire and anolher turns the handle which supplies 

 the motive power of the machine. The operator etir» 

 the parboiled poochies and pays out the thread 

 through his fingers. The cocoons unite together of 

 themselves in the water in some curious manner. 

 When a sufficient quantity of silk has lieen spun off 

 it is rolled into a twist, the price of which is about a 

 rupee a pallam, when this is cleaned by the buyer, 

 who is oeuerally a we.iver , and connneoted with the 

 weavers°of Koravad in Tanjore ; it weighs from J to 

 i pallam. This purified thread is worth R3 a pal- 

 lam, and is sold to merchants who weave it, or sup- 

 ply ' it to the weavers. The poochi breeding indus- 

 try goes on all the year round, unless checked by 

 a failure of the requisite leaves. The man we inter- 

 viewed piid his two assistants and also fhe peoijle 

 who cultivated his leaf fields. He rented the lands, 

 i, e. he did not himself bold puttas for tliem. His 

 clear monthly profit was between five and six Bu- 

 pees on an average. He had no other occupation 

 There were five famifies in the village who followed 

 this calling. There is only one o;her village in fhe 

 district where the industry is practised. The naines 

 of the villages are Melagaram and Saii.iar Kndiriji- 

 ruppu, between Courtallain and Tenkasi.—il/arf)-as Mail. 



is not specially used at high altitudes and intermitted 

 on the plains ; quite the contrary, we imagine. The 

 following is what Mr. Blackmore writes :— 



" On three or four occasions t have seen notes 

 respecting coca leaf and its uses and sustaining 

 qualities in your paper. As I was two years and 

 four mouths at Terro de Pasco in Peru, maknig a 

 raiKvay to the silver mines at an altitude of fifteen 

 thousand feet, I have had to assist in giving 700 

 labourers their coca each morning. For a day's al- 

 lowance they get just one handful. They march to 

 their work, sit down about 20 minutes to chew iheir 

 coca leaf with which they mix some fine flour lime, 

 which they carry in a very small calabash bottle 

 and take it out with a small stick, after wetting the 

 point This they put into their mouth in order to 

 mix the lime with the leaf. They commence work 

 at 8 a. m., work till 11-30, when they have half-an- 

 hour, during which they eat a few scorched grams 

 of maize. The old quid is thrown away and a 

 new one put in its place. They again work till three 

 p. m., when they take fresh leaves without the maize. 

 The same is done at night with a few scorched 

 grains of maize or beans. This is almost the sole 

 food they get, and considering the altitude where 

 respiration is 80 difficult, they work remarkably well. 

 Indeed they are a far superior class of workmen 

 to the coolies of Ceylon. During my residence in 

 Cerro de Pasco I made the acqu>iintance of an English- 

 m.in who had been in the country 20 years and a 

 gre.at part of that time he had been an officer in the 

 Peruvian army. He told me that the soldiers with 

 half-pound of coca leaves and about a table spoon- 

 ful of fine lime, would march from Cerro de Pasco 

 to Lima, 150 miles, without any other food ; but I 

 have also been told there that those who use it in 

 the mountains leave it off if they reside on the coast 

 for any time, so that it must be most beneficial in 

 great altitudes. I frequently used it myself by put- 

 ting a handful in the tea-kettle instead of tea. It 

 is a very good tonic : in fact I got to like it very 

 much, i was also six years in Uruguay, Banda Oientale, 

 making a railway ; Yerba mattee was used by all 

 classes". In fact I brought several lb. of Yerba 

 mattee to Ceylon with me, but in moving from 

 Hogg's Back to Blackwater it got wet and spoilt, 

 I forgot to mention that coca grows on the upper 

 Amazon, where it is gathered similarly to tea, the 

 leaves of which it very much resembles. The leaves 

 are dried, and then they are packed in bullock's hides, 

 sewn on each side while still wet and they are 

 packed so tightly that as the skin dries the tea 

 becomes almost as hard as a stone." 



THE COCA LEAF MASTICATORY AND YERBA 



MATTEE TEA OF SOUTH AMERICA, 

 form the subject of a very interesting communica- 

 tion from Mr. Wm. Blackmore, senr., dated frmn 

 Holyrood Tunnel, on the Nauuoya Railway Extension. 

 Mr. Blackmore gives the results of his personal ex- 

 perience, and it seems that as in the case of the betel 

 leaf and areka masticatory of Ceylon and the East 

 generally, fine lime is used to act chemically on the 

 ■vegetable matter and their juices. But we believe 

 that in this part of the world the narcotic stimulant 



BLUE GUMS AS BREAK-WINDS AND THE 

 GUM LEAF-DISEASE. 



Dr. Trimen is to be deputed to examine into and 

 report on the, apparently, obscure disease which has 

 attacked the gum trees and from them spread -with 

 injurious efifect to cinchonas and other trees. We 

 hope, therefore, soon to have reliable mformation as 

 to the nature of the disease and the remedial meas- 

 ures which may be possible. Dr. Trmien will, no 

 doubt, direct his special attention to the alleged 

 iimiiunity of trees so young as to have only the 

 original foliage on tliein, or which have retained that 

 original foliage (very distinct in size, shape and coloiu' 

 from the secondary crop of leaves), in consequence 

 of having been topped. Extensive breakwinds of 

 trees topped as the late Dr. Thwaites recommended, 

 exist on Inverness Estate, (which is. separated from Ab- 

 botsford onlyby abeltof jungle),anditwillbe veryinter- 

 esthig and important to learn if such trees have 



