426 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[November i, 18S2. 



Adulterated Tea. — To test whether tea is coloured 

 by carbonate of soda, put two tablespoon fuls of 

 liquid ammonia, and balf that of water in a corked 

 bottle; put iuto this one lablesponnful of leaves; 

 shake the bottle, and if a blue colour appears there 

 is copper in the tea, and it is adulterated. Journal oj 

 Design and Work. 



Cocoa : Zui.uland Wattfcjama, 5th Oct. — I send 

 you a cocoa leaf by train today, which measures over 

 2 ft. long. I am not sure whether you have yet had oue 

 60 large but if not just meution it in your paper to 

 let people know that we can produce foliage as well 

 as fruit in this part of the world. The tree is just 

 18 months old. [The leaf is simply magnificent. 

 —Ed.] 



Tea Sales. — A Correspondent writes: — "Perhaps 

 you may have noticed that in the last sale 

 of Windsor Forest tea one chest broken pekoe 

 was marked Windsor Forest G H D E, and sold 

 for only 1/4, whereas whnt was marked Windsor 

 Forest estates sold for 1/8. Now, I happen to know 

 that one chest was packed at the same time ae the 

 other 12, and had been bulked wilh the rest; ouly 

 as it was intended to be taken by a private individ- 

 ual, it was marked with the old Windsor Foi'est 

 mark. However, it seems that it was put up for sale 

 in the Lane, and being alone was not deemed as 

 good as if it had Tiiade the 13th chest, and bene 

 marked differently. Of course it is well-known one 

 chest won't sell as well as a large number; stil,l 

 whoever bought the one chest got the same tea 4d 

 cheaper. I see there was a chest pekoe as well 

 G. H. D. E. sold 1/2, W. F. division selling at 

 1/3|." 



Aloe Fibee. — Messrs. Cantwell & Co. write as fol- 

 lows to a contemporary : — "The following will no 

 doubt be found interesting to land-owners and cultivat- 

 ors. In November last we obsei'ved a quantity <if 

 prunings of the American aloe plant, together with 

 other weeds, thrown at one of the gates of Government 

 House for the purpose of being removed as refuse. 

 We procured some of the aloe plant leaves, many nf 

 which were over six feet in length, and subjected them 

 to our patent process for extraction of the fibre. A 

 sample of the liljre taken from them was .sent to London 

 and by the last Mail advice was received valuing it at 

 £28 per tou, and offering to take any quantity of it at 

 that price. The advice also stated that the highest 

 price that any aloe fibre has hitherto realized in the 

 London market was £16 per ton, so that the Indian 

 sample is nearly double the value of tliat at present 

 obtainable in the market. Land slocked with plants of 

 the foregoing description would probably yield about 50 

 maunds of fibre per beegah annually. The cost of cultiv- 

 ation would be very little, as the plant will grow 

 almost anjwhere and requires no attention. Ihe cost 

 of preparing the fibre by our process, which is very 

 simple and adapted to the circumstances of the rj-ot, 

 would not exceed eight annas per maund. Even allow- 

 ing that the co5t of produclion and placing the material 

 on the Calcutta market would be R2 per maund and the 

 price obtained for it only R8 per maund, the difference, 

 K6 per maund, would give a net profit of K300 per 

 beegah, which is worthy the serious attention of culti- 

 vators. Every ryot should at least have his fences and 

 hedgerows stocked with a good description of the 

 American Aloe pLuit." — Indian Aiji-icultifiii. ['' A 

 good description of the American aloe" ? The only 

 American aloe we know of in Ceylou is the grey, compar- 

 atively slow-growing agave americana. The green 

 aloe, foxircroya giganlca, grows inucli more rapidly and 

 luxuriantly, but the fibres of its leaves may be weaker ? 

 What we want to know is the best species or variety of 

 the aloe to cultivate for the production of "hemp,' 

 and we have at last obtained the information wihnh 

 will be given in Monday's pajjer,— Ed.J 



EsEMiES OF Tea. — Yattiyantota, 7th Oct. — I am 

 sending by this post a matchbox containing some 

 small green poochies which I find infesting the young 

 shoots of newly pruned tea. The shoots are also badly 

 affected with blackbug. Have the pootchies come to 

 feed on the shoots or on the bug ? [The green poo- 

 chies are the larvas of a genus of flies belonging to 

 the family Syrphida;. They somewhat resemble small 

 wasps, and in their larva; state feed upon aphides &c. 

 The larv;e received from our correspondent, were no 

 doubt feeding on Ihe young and tender black bug at 

 the time of their ca|iture, unless they happened to be 

 within reach of aphides, their usual food, of whichi 

 they devour immense numbers. Since they have been 

 in our possession, many of them have turned into 

 the perfect insect, and thus we have been able to 

 identify them.— 11th Oct. 1882.] 



Coffee Plantino nEPREs.sioN and the Cause. 

 W. F. L. writes : — "I cannot understand ' W.'s letters. 

 Such districts as Pundaloya, Bambodda, Kalebokka, 

 Rangalla, and the best parts of thenewdistricts would not 

 have gone out as they have done without leaf disease. 

 It is leaf- disease absolutely that has reduced their crops 

 to almost nil. The Governor's remark, in his opening 

 Speech in Council, speaking of the falling-off of coffee 

 crops as being owing to the falling-off of manuring, 

 is logically 'the cart before the horse.' Planters 

 manured as long as they could, and only stopped when 

 the coffee with niauure ceased to pay for its continu- 

 ance. When estimates would admit of it no longer, 

 they were perforce obliged to stop. Would that 

 Lunatic Asylums could be stopped also, and that felons' 

 Prisons were a little less inviting, and we might then 

 keep more of our own property." 



New Products in thk Hill Country. — Rubber trees 

 in Doomliera are beginning to assume quite an altered 

 shape and appearance. Instead of the branches grow- 

 ing upwards, they seem, after the second year, to bend 

 over and hang down to the ground, something like what 

 is known in coffee planting as an umbrella tree. The 

 tree thus loses in height, but gains in breadth, and the 

 branches quite conceal the stem. Cardamoms, — I hear 

 of some cardamom stools in Uolosbagie giving 1 to IJ 

 lb. per stool of dry ripe fruit. Cocoa. — It is generally 

 believed that a cocoa plant is ruined if its tap-roct is 

 cut. I know one instance where a large number were 

 regularly cut, and so far as one cnn see, without any 

 evil consequences. On an estate in Nilambe, where nil 

 efforts to grow the ordinary Doombera cocoa have been 

 most disiipp^inting, the Caraocas variety is flourishing. 

 IMaravilla cocoa, or what has been imported in one in- 

 stince as such, almost invariably splits up into five 

 leading primaries about four feet above the ground. 

 The pods are green. — "Times." 



India-rubber and Cincuona in Guayaquil. — 

 In a Consular Report recently issued on the trade 

 and commerce of Ecuador tlirough the port of Guaya- 

 quil during the year 1881, it is stated that the 

 amount of indiarubber cpllected during the year ex- 

 ceeded that shipped in 1880 by about 10 per cent. 

 Up to the present no measures have been taken by 

 the Government to prevent the cutting down of the 

 trees producing this article, and this practice is slowly 

 destroying the resources of the country in this re- 

 spect. Under the head of Peruvian IJnrk we are 

 informed th.at the sudden fall in the price of this 

 article in Europe considerably curtailed the export- 

 ation, wliich would otherwise have been in excess 

 of ISSO. As it is, there is a small decrease notice- 

 able, from the fact that most of the inferior grades of 

 baik which hiid been collected were retained in Ecuador, 

 the owners fearing that the expenses of conveyance 

 would consume even more than the proceeds of ths 

 bark in Europe. New districts containing large foreste 

 of the best quality of bark-yiolding trees have been re- 

 cently discovered in the interior. — Oardenera' Chronicle, 



