988 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[June i, 1883. 



and the main stem of our railroad system maj' again be 

 damaged on the Serra and traffic iuterrupted, aa we liave 

 often seen before, thus stopping supplies, which would of 

 course interfere with the fulfilment of these future de- 

 livery coutracts. Nothing can show more plainly how the 

 trade has been cut up than Table V., in my dispatch 

 No. 84, made up from the invoice book of this consulate 

 containing the number of invoices certified to. The 

 number for 1882 would have bean greater had not a large 

 buyer in New York, for its roasting purposes, opened 

 branch houses at Rio and here and ship their cotfees in 

 large invoices. The small invoices, then, poiut to the fact 

 that the consignees are many, and perhaps a number of 

 tliem are in our interior cities and towns. 



Laying aside the Havre operations, the same is the case 

 with Europe, where it seems many cities aud town have 

 their respective little combinations for importation aud 

 division among individual members thereof. A house 

 here not long ago shipped per steamer to Hamburg 

 2,000 bags, divided or cut up into fifteen invoices for 

 delivery all over Germany at different points. I 

 was told that the largest invoice was for 1,000 

 bags. This house is one of the oldest, wealthiest 

 and most reliable import and export firms here, able 

 to do what they wish, but nothing with type samples 

 futures or speculation as now conducted. You will thus 

 see that the Brazilian coffee trade has been brought down 

 nearly to a Ceylon writer's notion of " plantation to cup." 



The priiL's of coffee here are very low as compared with 

 former ye,t is, and much is being said and written about it 

 both here and abroad, and the Government and Associations 

 are engaged in promoting the display of sami:»Ies in Eui'ope 

 aud the LThited States, with the view of bringing Brazilian, 

 especially 8antos coffee better before consumers. If au ex- 

 portation of 1,. 500,000 bags cannot show what Santos coffee 

 x«ally is I fail to see how a few finger-picked samples, 

 showing what it can aud ought to be, but representing what 

 cannot be h. id, can have any good effect. Far better would 

 it be to have an exhibition of samples of coffee from other 

 protlucing countries at some central point in the province 

 where the planters might go and see that planters in those 

 counti'ies send to consuming markets for sale the same 

 coffee that their own cooks, after picking and washing 

 out stones, chaff, &c., roast and pi-epare for the table. No 

 onu can or will deny that the flavour of Santos coffee is 

 not equal to any other, but it hurts the planter to see it 

 quoted so much below others abroad, and to be told that it is 

 mixed with aud sold as some other kind at the quoted market 

 price for such kind. Nothing more reasonable than this, for 

 if the planter deems it more to his interest to send down for 

 sale his crop containing one-fom'th stones, tlii't, unsightly, 

 valueless, black, and ashy beans aud husk, he ought to 

 expect it to be sold at a pxice here wliich will allow some 

 niargiij for cleaning it abroad and putting it into the 

 same condition for roasting and raising as he himself uses. 



Too many coffee trees have been planted, and hence 

 the fruit is not properly harvested and prepared for market, 

 and planters are reported as confessing tliis. Weil-pre- 

 pared coffees are sent down and fetch relatively high 

 prices, both here aud abroad, but being exceptions, are 

 not generally quoted. And if the actual low prices here 

 leave a loss to the planter, wluci, however, I do not 

 believe he must blame himself in tacitly protecting the 

 high and exorbitant railroad freight charges. These rail- 

 roads pay dividends at the rate of ten to fom-teen per 

 centum per annum. All but one are native enterprises, 

 in many instances, many planters being large shareholders, 

 who grumble at low coffee prices, but not at their rail- 

 road dividends. The r.^ih■oad freight and charges average 

 o nuh'eis on every bag of coffee sent to Santos ; the 

 average sale price today is about 17 niilreis per bag ((iO 

 kilogs. or 132 lb), not including very ordinary and triage, 

 uf which there is a large quantity in store not worth 

 nn an average over 9 or 10 milreis per bag, which, de- 

 ducting all other charges will leave httle or nothing for 

 the planter. The planter must now clean his crop very 

 much better so as to send down a better quality, send 

 down a smaller quantity and obtain comparatively higher 

 pi'ices, paying or rather not paying, freight on unsent 

 trash, and cause railroads to be satisfied with less incomes 

 and smaller dividends ; otherwise Mexico may teach them 

 a severe lesson. — American Mail. 



To Make TouC4h Meat Tender (.see p. 967).— Please try 

 Fig leaves for softening meat, as I recommended in 

 your Journal years ago. You might do well to wait until 

 you have some grown in the open au-, as those grown 

 under glass might be less efficient than I found them in 

 Algiers. The common Nettle is considered in Belgium to 

 possess the opposite properties, and is much used for %vi-app- 

 ing up such deUcate things as trout, crayfish, game aud 

 other deUcacies, when sending them out in baskets. — Jean 

 Van Volxem. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 



Mangkove Fkuit.— Misprints are a source of 

 trouble to all editors and words similar in ortho- 

 graphy are often confounded. The most recent case 

 occurs in the Queenslander where " mangoes" has been 

 changed by composite diablerie into " mangroves," 

 thus : — "Orchards of a tropical character are not at 

 all unfrequent in the coast lands near Brisbane, and 

 conspicuous among them is Green Hill nursery and 

 orchard, owned by Mr. A. Williams at the eight-mile 

 Plains. His mangroves this year huve produced par- 

 tioalarly good fruit, the flavour of most of them being 

 excellent, especially the 'rose' and the ' strawberry ' 

 varieties, and olhersw tjich we have had the pleasure 

 of tasting. To give our readers an idea of them it 

 13 only necessary to state that some of the larger ones 

 were nearly IJlb. weight." 



Planting Tea with Coffee. — With reference to 

 "Vera"'s rather despondent letter and estimates 

 on page 991, we may briefly say that while he 

 puts R60 per acre as the cost of planting up 

 coffee with tea and cultivating &e., several planters 

 think it can be done, with care and economy, for 

 not more than R40 per acre. One point cannot be 

 pressed too strongly on planters of tea, and that is 

 to have their supply of plants well matured before 

 going to the expense of clearing new land or of holing 

 coffee-land. One authority goes so far as to say 

 that plants might well be left more than a year in 

 the nursery with advantage, aud we learn of a case 

 where 150,000 iwo year old nursery plants put out last 

 season have done so well that this year they a\'« 

 being cropped, thus saving cost of a year's weeding 

 as well as interest on planting on new land, aud 

 saving the coffee one year longer on old plantations. 

 First, then, let the would-be tea planter make sure 

 of his nursery and of a good supply of fully-matured 

 healthy tea plants. 



Eucalyptus Leaf Ointment. — Josephson's Ointment is 

 of Australian origin, being the property of Messrs. E. Row 

 and Co., of New South AYales. In the colonies it has 

 achieved, we believe, considerable success in the treatment 

 of wounds, etc. It is, we are told, prepared from wild plants 

 that are peculiar to Australia, these plants being "met with 

 nowhere except on that contineut." What these plants 

 are we are not informed, but their efficacy on being trans- 

 formed into an ointment is testified to by a number of testi- 

 monials published by the English agent, Mr, Dawson, of 

 Macclesfield. As some of these date back as far as 1874, the 

 ointment can scarcely be considered in its iufancy. It is in 

 composition a vegetable extract, and quite harmless, and is 

 very cooUng in its action. For sores of all kinds, and for 

 burns, chilblains, piles, etc., it is especially recommended. 

 Since writing the above our attention has been drawn to the 

 following paragraph in explanation of the composition of the 

 ointment : — " Uf the various families of plants pecuUar to 

 Austraha, none is of greater importance, both from a scientific 

 and au industrial point of view, than those comprised in the 

 class of Eucalypti or gum trees. There are in all over one 

 hundred distinct species in this family, some, of the larger 

 varieties being giant forest trees, attaining a height of up- 

 wards of 200 feet. Besides timber of a superior quality, they 

 yield gum, tannin, and other products of economic utility. 

 It is to the medicinal virtues of the Eucalypti, however, that 

 particular attention is directed. The leaves of several of the 

 species, when duly pri-[)areil aud compounded into an oint- 

 ment, are found to poss-'ss healing properties, which, without 

 exaggeration, may bo termed remarkable." — E-rpurt Prices 

 Current ^ lYude Report. 



