Junk i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



991 



certaiuly worth $1(;,000,000, total $76,000,000 for raw 

 materiul, the vahie of which would surely be moro than 

 trebled in the manufacture. Thus S250, 000,000, 

 are obtained, which 13 more than equivalent to the 

 £50,000,000 Jour eouiemporary of the "Times " lutely 

 ijuoted, and, unless you are prepared to show thiit 

 the import of raw rubber into the United States was 

 considerably less than 33,000 tons last yeiir, you are 

 wrong in culling the American editor's statement " an 

 exaggeration I" Certainly, you cannot condemn ligures 

 given iu a Census Bullitin for the year 1882 upon 

 the strength of a newspaper's loose statement for the 

 year 1S80 ! And a striking feature which you 

 would do well to call your readers' attention to 

 is the increase in vidue of the raw product in six 

 years from 4S cents to SI '25 cents per lb.— Yours 

 truly, W. MOREY. 



[The sooner Mr. Morey, as Consul, refers the question 

 to headquarters the better, and he will probably 

 find that a printcr'.s errir is acoountablii for the 250 

 millions dollars w irth of rubber manufactures ; the 

 Census Bulletin may be all right and the Mail all 

 wrong. — Ed.] 



MOSS GROWING ON COFFEE TREES AS 

 COVERING FOR CINCHONAS. 



Dear Sir, — Has any one tried moss growing on the 

 stems and primaries of old coffee as a covering for 

 cinchona trees, as I have neTer seen it done, and 

 would recommend some of your readers to try how 

 to apply it best. 



Sometimes grass for thatching the trees growing 

 through ooH'ee ie not to be had within reach, and in 

 such a case moss will be found a cheap covering 

 for trees large enough to be worth the labour, whil ; 

 the coffee trees will benefit by its removal. 



I have tried it on a small scale, and so far it appears 

 to answer the purpose well. 



The plan 1 have taken is, after removing strips of 

 bark for quill otV a tree, to lay on moss under old 

 shingles and tie firmly with coir, beginning at the 

 bottom of the stem and working upwards. Perhaps 

 dead coffee leaves might be a substitute for mose, put 

 on and secured under shingles ; but this may draw 

 attention to material at hand for experiment, and 

 how to make it of use.— Yours truly, FOG. 



PLANTING TEA AND CINCHONA ON 



MORTGAGED COFFEE ESTATES. 



Dear Sir, — At this time proprietors are planting 

 up their coffee estates with tea. I would ask for 

 whom, i. c, for themselves or for their mortgagees? 

 Let lis take a not unusual case — a 200 acre estate 

 that durhig the last 4 years has dwindled down from 

 5,000 to 1,000 bushels parchment and over which 

 there is a mortgage of R50,000 at 8 per cent and 

 from which say .3,000 rupees worth of cinchona 

 shavings and toppings can be obtained annually at 

 present. I am speaking of holing and planting plants, 

 and propose the first year to plant 100 acres between 

 tlic eoli'ec rows only, at 3 feet apart ; the second year 

 to plant the other 10l> acres the same way ; the third 

 to plant up the coffee rows in 100 acres 3 feet 

 apart, taking out tlie coffee ; the fourth year to plant 

 the coffe'e row of the remaiuiiig 100 acres, taking out 

 the coffee : so at the end of the fourth year you have 

 50 acres 4 year old, 50 acres 3 year old, 50 acres 2 

 year old, 50 acres 1 year old tea and no coffee. To 

 keep the cotiee and planted tea iu order, to plant 50 

 acres tea yearly, to plant and harvest the cinchona, 

 I do not think K60 per acre is a high expenditure. 

 Taking the above tigures and taking 4 years, what 

 is the result ? 



lat year expenditure 12,000 Profit. Loss. 



Interest 4,000=10,000 



Value of cinchona ... 5,000 



Value of coffee .,,10,000=15,000 1,000 



2ud year's result is the 

 same 10,00 



3rd year you take out 100 acres of coffee, but may 

 fairly increase the return from cinchona, say : — 



Value of cinchona ,,, 7,500 



Value of coffee ,, 5,000= 12,.500 



against interest and expenditure 10,000 3,500 



4th year you have no coffee "j 

 but say profit of 10 cents per V 750 

 lb. on 7,500 lb. tea, say J 



and value of einchona ,,, 7, 500_ 8,250 



againstexpeuditure and interest of... ~ 16,000 7,750 

 or a total loss on the 4 years' working of ,., R13,250 

 which added to the mortgage above-mentioned 50,000 



makes a debt on the estate of ,,. .., 03,250 

 or say as the last year's expenditure was 



not reduced ... 60,000 



and you may have : 



50 acres 4 year old tea worth R300 per acre .., 15,000 



50 ,, 3 ,, „ 250 ,, .,, 12,500 



50 „ 2 ,, ,, 200 ,, .., 10,000 



50 ,, 1 ,, ,, 150 7,500 



and cinchonas worth perhaps ,.. ... 30,000 



making the whole estate worth ,,, ,,. 75,000 



and an estate which would not give you profit after 

 paying interest for perhaps 2 years longer. Few 

 mortgagees can wait so long for their money, and, if 

 there are not buyers, there is small chance of bor- 

 rowing R60,000 on an estate valued at R75,000 : in 

 fact a tea estate has been made for your mortgagee. 

 There may be other better ways of planting tea 

 through coffee, and ijlanting at stake may be cheaper; 

 but I think the yield of coffee will be lessened by 

 tea growing thickly through it, I don't say I am cor- 

 rect, )5ut I should like to see the subject discussed. 

 My estimate is a very rough one and can very easily 

 be picked to pieces. (Cinchonas grow, and more bark 

 can be harvested, but cinchonas also die ; we may get 

 better coffee crops, but we may get worse, and ai'e 

 specially likely to when tea is sapping the soil. 

 Great reduction of mterest by mortgagees aided by 

 better coffee crops would help the proprietor more 

 than anything. Let the visiting agents in their re- 

 ports, instead of condemning coffee, tea and cinchona, 

 condemn the high rates of interest, and they would 

 do good to the proprietor, mortgagee and the country. 

 — I am, yours faithfully, \'ERA. 



OuHiosiTV OF Tree Grovvth, — Au iutercstmj,' observation 

 oil tree ruigs is recorded by Prof. Bachclart iu La Xalare. 

 Din-iug a visit to the nuns of Palenque, Mexico, in 1859, 

 Bl. Charnay caused all the trees that hid the facjade of 

 one of the pyi'aniids of the place to be cut down. On 

 a second visit in 1880, he cut the trees that had grown 

 since 1859, and he remarked that all of them had a mun- 

 ber of concentric circles greatly superior to their age. 

 The oldest could only have been 2- years of age, but 

 on a section of one of them he counted 250 circles, A 

 sluuli. 18 mouths old at most, had IS concentric circles. 

 M, Charnay foiuid the case repeated in every specie,s, and 

 in trees of all sizes, H(^ concluded that in a hot or 

 moist chmate, where nature is never at rest, it may pro- 

 duce not one circle a year as with us, liut one a month. 

 The age of a monument has often been calculated from 

 that of trees that have grown on its ruins. For Palenque, 

 M. Laraiuzar calculated 1,700 years, having counted 1,700 

 rings iu a tree, M, Charnay's observation requires the 

 number to be cut down to 1511 or 200 years, making a 

 cousi<lerable diilereuce, a matter of 1,5011 years. Prof, 

 Baehelart asks whether M, Charnay took account of cert- 

 ain coloured ruigs which some tropical ti-ees present iu 

 cross .section, and which are to be distinguished from the 

 annual circles. — N. W, LviUBiajiuw.— Jyio/w^ of Fortstry. 



