June i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTUIUST. 



1003 



A CooRO Coffee Planter in Australia. — Mr. R. 

 Lindsay, late a coffee planter in Coorg, bat now re- 

 siding at Wakleok, Balliua, New South Wales, writes 

 to us as foil ws : — "I was for ten years a coffee 

 planter in Coorg, but sold out a year and a half a;;o, 

 as the suialluess of the money to be mude in coffee 

 did not compare favourably with the long residence 

 to be made up country in India ; so I packed up my 

 traps and mude ' tracks' for Ausirnlia. After looking 

 about the colonics for six months, I deiiided to set: le 

 hero in sugar pl»Btirig and farming generally. This 

 sugar growing ranks with sheep and cattle farming 

 as a monej-making concern, and is besides the very 

 ihing for men with small capital, say two or three 

 thousand pounds, up to any amount. The cUmnte 

 here in the north-east corner of New South Wales, 

 is tbo very thing for an Anglo-In>iiau, something like 

 that of the Neilghernes, but witlija sea breeze. Pine 

 apples grow splendidly in the open air, and all other 

 tropical fruits and flowers grow as well here as they 

 do in the tropics, while the climate has not the same 

 relaxing heat. Besides sugar cane and maize, my 

 staple products, I have growing here bananas, pine- 

 apples, passion fruit, cuslard-apple. lemons, oranges, 

 peaches, guavas, grapes, tigs, mulberries, water-melons, 

 pumpkins, aweet potatoes and all English vegetables, 

 and even the eternal Madras ' brinjal.' — il. Mail. 



How TO Enjoy Coffee. — It remains then to make 

 the colTce. A common coff'ee-pot suffices, and the 

 commonest kind of boiling water. We want no per- 

 colators or extractojs; and, indeed, if this paper has 

 any value, it will perhaps consist in the prescription 

 of an exceedingly simple plan of ensuring coffee '"as 

 in Paris." Put into the pot a teacupful of coffee and 

 two teaspooufuls of chicory for every three breakfast 

 cups of infusion required. Put the pot on the hot 

 pate for a few moments to warm the coffee, then pour 

 in the boiling water and put the pot on the ."ire, and 

 when the coffee lioils pour it out and return it a few 

 times in the "old fashioned waj, " for the is no better 

 way ; and you want no egg shells, no sole skins, and no 

 isinglass, for if you are smart in your luovements, and 

 then leave the pot alone for five minutes, the infusion 

 will be as clear as an honest man's conscience and 

 you have but to pour it out in the cups and enjoy 

 it. Having mude it, you must drink it; and here it 

 must be i-Bcorded that as a breakfast beverage it ia 

 certainly better with hot t'nan with cold milk. The 

 why and the wherefore cannot be explained by the 

 writer of this, but the fact is not to be doubted, 

 tliat sculding the milk improves the flavour and the 

 wholesomeoess of the cofCee. It should be strong, so 

 as to reijuire reducing with milk and sweetening with 

 sugar, and then it is a question if it is not equivalent 

 to meat and drink for assuredly it is as full of sup- 

 port as Atlus, who once took the earth upon his 

 back and ie said to have thought nothing of it. 

 Conversing lately with a friend on this subject, he said 

 that when in a Continental hotel lie found it a very 

 easy matter to conform to the Continental rule of 

 eating only l<iscuit or light roll with his morning 

 coffee, "For," said he, "there is so much support in 

 their splendid coffee that 1 can do a long and be>»vy 

 morning's work lu picture galleries, and hard walking, 

 and want nothing after my coffee and roll until I 

 return at one to the substantial and savoury d^jtinner 

 At home I take tea with bacon and eggs, but I prefer 

 the ontinental taehion of grand coffee and but little 

 to eat with it." Those to whom, by reason of the 

 (lay's engagements, it is a matter of importance to 

 make a hearty breakfast, "coffee as in Paris," may 

 b" leas desiralile than appears. At all events, in our 

 houseliolds, when we have any reason for beginning 

 the day with a good meal, we take care to order 

 coUee for breakfast. Taking a broad view of the sub- 

 ject, and with regard to health solely, it seems that 



tea is an impoverishing sort of beverage, and as a 

 rule, not fit for regular use at the beginning of the 

 day. — X. Y. Z. in the Qankner'a Magnzint. 



Cinchona Culture in Java.. — We call attention 

 to the first report on the Java Government Cinchona 

 Gardens written by Mr. Moens' successor, and translated 

 for our columns. The most important fact is the com- 

 plete success of the ledger grafts on Buccirubra stems, 

 the red bark trees exercising no deleterious influence as 

 W'-is feared. Can it be true as stated by a visitor 

 from Java that one private proprietor in that island 

 has as many as 5,000 acres under Cinchona Ledgeriana 

 and all flourishing and promising well? It seems rather 

 a big story. 



Not content with m-mcino coffee out of date 

 STONES, the inventive genius of the age promises to 

 produce us cheese which has never seen the inside of 

 a dairy. For a long time past, it appears the Chinese 

 and Japanese have indulged, with much satisfaction, 

 in a very remarkable kind of bean which grows in 

 that region ; but souie energetic European has found 

 out that this beau, owing to the greasy matter and 

 the albumen which it contains, can be worked up 

 into an excellent cheese. The bean is, therefore, to 

 be imported into the south of France, and, if it thrive 

 we are promised cheese which will rank with 

 nothing less than the very best Parmesan.— if jo 

 News. 



The Pertinacity and Predominance of Weeds. 

 — Considering weeds to be plants of the nature of 

 herbs which tend to take prevalent possession of 

 soil used for man's purposes, irrespective of his will. 

 Professor Asa Gray inquires, in a recent paper in 

 SilUman's .Journal, whether weeds have any common 

 characteristic which may give them advantage, and 

 why most of the weeds of the United States, and 

 probab.y of similar temp rate countries, should be 

 toreigners. This latter is strikingly the case on the 

 Atlantic side of temperate North America, where the 

 weeds have mainly come from Europe, and the com- 

 mon answer to the question must be largely true 

 — viz., that, as the region was not really forest-clad, 

 there were few of its native herbs which, if they 

 could bear the exposure at all, could compete on 

 cleared laud with emigrants from the Old World. 

 A certain number of the weeds in that region have 

 come from the west and south, some with rather rapid 

 strides in recent years owing to increased means of 

 communication, and there are also native American 

 weeds, indigenous to the region, which have become 

 strongly aggressive through changed conditious. Pro- 

 fessor Claypole, of Ohio, has tried to account for 

 the predominance of Old World weeds in the Atlantic 

 United States by supposing a greater "plasticity" in 

 European than m American flora (the plant more easily 

 iidapting itself, if the change be not too great or 

 sudden, to its new situation, and taking out a new 

 lease of life as a weed) But Professor [Gray regards 

 this view as purely hypothetical. Again, Mr. Henslow 

 thinks that weetls or intrusive dominant plants gener- 

 ally have a common chaiacteristic to which this 

 dominance may be attributed— viz., that they are in 

 general self- fertilized plants. The question whether 

 the weeds which Europe has given to North America 

 are more self-fertiliziug or less subject to cross fertiliz- 

 ation than others is examined by Professor Gray, and 

 he is led to answer that self-fertilization is neither 

 the cause nor a perceptible cause of the prepotency 

 referred to. A similar conclusion ia justified by a 

 cursory examination of the indigenous weeds of the 

 Atbintic States, and of the prevalent species in Cali- 

 foriiii, whieh (as might be expected) are mostly in- 

 digenous species or immigrants from South America, 

 though the common weeds of the Old World, especi- 

 ally of Southern Burope, are coming in. 



