I002 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[June i, 1883. 



The following resolutions were then put and earned : — 

 " That the association is of opiuiou that the purchase of 

 a steamer is not desii-able." "That it is desu-able to pro- 

 cure a supply of Chinese laljour ou the basis of the letter 

 before the meeting." "That Mr. J. M'Bryde be authorized 

 to proceed to Cliina with letters of credit and letters of 

 introduction with a view of obtaioiug a supply of the 

 labour if it appeared to him likely to be satisfactory." 



A list was opened ia the room of the names of those 

 desirous of obtaining the Chinese, and applications for 

 over 300 were at once made. — Qtwemlander. 



[Our sentiments in regard to Chinese as estate 

 labourers are well known. The bad characters amongst 

 them are liable to sudden outbreaks in which they 

 are reckless of life. The C|uiet and industrious are 

 impatient to set up for themselves as market garden- 

 ers, shopkeepers and so forth. The continued suc- 

 cess of the sugar industry in Northern Queensland de- 

 pends on a well-ordered system of cooly immigration 

 from India. — Ed.] 



REPORT ON THE GOVERNMENT CINCHONA 



ENTERPRIZE IN JAVA FOR THE 1ST 



QUARTER 1883. 



The weather was very variable during the past quarter. 

 At the end of February, as well as in the beginning and 

 middle of March, a drought quite exceptional for those 

 months was experienced, which was not favorable for 

 the young plants. At Nagrak especially the young plants 

 suffered greatly from the drought. At the end of Janu- 

 ary a severe storm was experienced everywhere. Of all 

 the plantations the Nagrak estabU.shment suffered most 

 from it. Considerable damage was done not only to the 

 plants but also to the dwellings and the nursery-house. 

 The export of cinchona bark during the past quarter 

 amounted to 98,247 Amst. lb. Of this 61,456 lb. belong 

 to the harvest of 1882. Of the produce of the harvest 

 of 1883 34,970 Amst. lb. arc intended for .sale in the 

 Netherlands, and 1,821 lb. for the local military medical 

 service here. There are still some .35,000 lb. of bark in 

 the packing-houses, which on account of a larger supply 

 of means of transport will at the end of this quarter be 

 quickly dispatched to Tjikao. The supply of laborers was 

 more than sufficient, in spite of the great demands for 

 labor on the private cinchona estates, which ere con- 

 tinually extending in the vicinity of the Government 

 gardens. On 3rd March 2,000 Ledgeriana grafts were 

 sold by public auction at Bandoeng. Of these 1,300 

 found buyers at the upset price of /lO each, fixed by 

 the Government. The plants were bought solely by 

 Java cinchona planters. According to the information given 

 in the report for the 4th quarter of 1882, the fear was still 

 entertained of the exercise of an evil influence of the succi- 

 rubra stem on the Ledgeriana graft. An analysis of 

 bark taken from twenty grafts obtained from slips of 

 the mother tree No. 23 clearly evidenced the groundless- 

 ness of this fear. On examination of tbcso three-year 

 trees indeed not a trace of cinchonidine was discovered, 

 while 7'37 per cent of quinine was found in the bark. 

 Slips were therefore taken almost wholly from tliis wonder- 

 ful tree for artificial propagation. At the beginning of 

 March two years' leave to Europe was granted to the Director 

 of the Government cinchona euterprize, J. C. Bernelot 

 Moens. The Assistant Director was appointed to act for 

 hmi. "With reference to an Assistant Director, nothing 

 had been determined at the end of this quarter. 



Van Romunde, 

 Vir. Govt. Cinchona Knterprize. 



Bandoeng, 8th April 1883. 



THE ROILING OF WATER AND THE 

 " RECEPTIVITY " OF CERTAIN ANIMAL 



(AND PLANT) CONSTITUTION-^. 



We append an interesting and instructive paragraph 



from Knowluhje written by Mr. W. Mattieu Williams 



in discussing " the chemistry of cookery." He says ; — 



"Our tea-kettles, engine boilers, &c., become incrusted 



when fed with calcareous waters, and most wat rs are 



calcareous ; those supplied to London, which is sur- 

 rounded by chalk, are largely so. Thus the lioiling or 

 cooking of such water effects a removal of its mineral 

 impurities more or less completely. Other waters con- 

 tain such mineral matter as salts of sodium and potas- 

 sium. These are not removeable by mere boiling. 



" Usually we have no very strong motive for remov- 

 ing either these or the dissolved carbonate of lime, or 

 the atmoepherio gaees from water, but there is an- 

 other class of impurities of serious importance. There 

 are organic matters dissolved in all water that has 

 run over land covered with vegetable growth, or, 

 more especially, which has received contributions from 

 sewers or any other form of house drainage. Such 

 water supplies nutriment to those microscopic abomin- 

 ations, the micrococci, bacilli, hacteria, &c. , which are 

 now shown to be connected with blood-poisoning — 

 possibly do the whole of the poisoning business These 

 little pests are harmless, and probably nutritious, 

 when cooked, but in their raw and wriggling state 

 are horribly prolific in the blood of people who are 

 in cei'taiu states of what ia called "receptivity." They 

 (the bacteria, &c. ) appear to be poisoned or somehow 

 killed off by the digestive secretions of the blood of 

 some people, and nourished luxuriantly in the blood 

 of others. As nobody can be quite sure to which 

 class he belongs, or may presently belong, or whether 

 the water supplied to his household is free from blood- 

 poisoning organisms, cooked water is a safer beverage 

 than raw water. 



"The requirement for this simple operation of cook- 

 ing increases with the density of our population, 

 which on reaching a certain degree renders the pol- 

 lution of all water obtained from the ordinary sources 

 almost inevitable. 



" Reflecting on the subject, I have been struck with 

 a curious fact that has hitherto escaped notice, viz., 

 that in the country which over all others combines 

 a very large population with a very small allowanoe 

 of cleanliness, the ordinary drink of the people is 

 boiled water flavoured by an infusion of leaves. These 

 people, the Chinese, seem, in fact, to have been tlie 

 iuventoi's of boiled water beverages. Judging from 

 travellers' accounts of the state of the rivers, rivulets, 

 and general drainage and irrigation arrangements of 

 China, its population could scarcely have reached its 

 present density if Chinamen were drinkers of raw 

 instead of cooked water." 



Apart from what we are told as to the gi-eater 

 safety of cooked rather than raw water — and, m 

 Ceylon, boiled water, filtered and cooled, is often 

 a necessity and is especially desirable in the case 

 of cliildren ; — the remark as to the ' receptivity ' of 

 the lilood of certain people, an esteemed coiTespond- 

 ent thinks, may throw light on the way in which 

 certain coffee trees suffer from leaf disease while 

 others close by are often exempt. The germs alluded 

 to are " killed oft'" in some and luxuriantly nourished 

 in others, somchoir, but no one knows how. Now, it 

 may be maintained that there is a lo'/ical necessity 

 for the existence of such a ' certain state of recept- 

 ivity ' in the coffee tree, the greater or less degree 

 of which determines the greater or less severity of 

 the attack. Surely there is nothing extraordinary in 

 this : any more than in the fact that certain plants 

 refuse to grow in some soils an<l luxuriate in others. 

 But tlien, did not Marshall Ward seem to deny any 

 sucli state in our coffee trees, although in so doing 

 he would appear to be opposed to both fact and 

 theory ? 



" ROUGH ON RATS." 

 Clears out rats, mice, roaches, thes, nuts, bed-bugs, beetles, 

 insects, skunks, chipnnmks, gophers. TJd. Druggists, B. S. 

 Madon & Co., Bombay, General Agents. 



