January i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



565 



CIxVCHONA CULTIVATION. 



Sir, — In reply to "Columbine's" query in your 

 issue of the 7tli instant, his bark has degenerated 

 by being left on his flying trees ; but it retiiins some 

 of its viitue, and I would advise him to scrape all 

 be can get off his dead trees as soon as he can and 

 mix it freely with his next shipment of small twiga 

 and scrapings. I have h.id recourse to this plan on 

 several occasions and never received any ci>mplaints 

 from the brokers, who have an awkward habit of 

 alivays pvdling a shipment to pieces whenever they 

 have the chance. As to drying b.irk when compelled 

 to in boisterous weather, minus proper appliances, I 

 have done tlie needful very well in days gone by, 

 by lighiiug fires uuder sheets of corrufjated iron roof- 

 ing and dcyi' g the bark over them, the report from 

 home being as favouable as u-ual. But this last mon- 

 soon, which was very severe, I dried off most of our 

 bark in one of "Daviitson's Siroccos" for drying tea 

 at a temperature of 280° to ,S00°, and it answered 

 admirably, making me quite independent of the 

 weather. W. D, 



— Madras Mail,] 



I 



PLANTING QUERIES. 



(To the Editor, "Tropical AgricjiUurist") 

 Coonoor, Madras, 17th November, 1882. 



Dear Sir, — Allow me to trouble you with a bundle 

 of queries, which some one may be kmd enough to 

 reply to. How does Ceara rubber answer for shading 

 coff.-p, where a light shade is desirable ? If akin to 

 the ordmary Indian fig, it should surely prove a good 

 kind of shade to grow, being more rapid in its de- 

 velopement than the fig, and at present having the 

 credit of yielding some sort of a profit. [Ceara rubber 

 is decidedly worth a trial for shade as well as for 

 its intrinsic value, — Ed.] 



In sowing ccoa seed at stake, would you recommend 

 Okroo seed being sown alongside for the sake of the 

 temporary shade afforded, as is done in the W. Indies 1 

 — [Yes. — Ed.] 



To what intluences do the scientists ascribe the 

 premature di-coloration and death of many spores of 

 Hnneleia. : to conditions of sap, soil, or atmosphere ? 

 I conclude to the first of the tliree, or the plieno- 

 menou would be more general. — [Refer to Mr. Ward's 

 report in first volume of 7'. A.] 



Has Mr. Storck. or any other e.xperimenter with 



carbolic aeid, found that the fumes eave all the 



foliage of "chicks" of the more exagjerated type ? — 



[Scarcely a chick in ^'eylon.] — I am, yours faithtully, 



W. RHODES JAMES. 



CiiFFEE IN Brazil.— An amendment to the pro- 

 vincial budget ol Rio de Janeiro continues the 

 expoit dnty on coffee at 4 per cent, and iu'Teascs 

 that on sugar to 3 per cent. — Rio JS'ncs, Oct. 14th, 



Java Coffke Crop. —This j ear's Government coffee 

 crop in J.iva and Sumatra has been estimated at 

 fully 1,-00,000 piculs, the greatest yet known since the 

 introduction of the cultivation of the article in those 

 islands. The Java crop alone it is said amounts to 

 1,083,510 piculs.— S(rai<s Times. 



Castor 1.)il Plant. — .\ contributor to the .B«/tom rfe 

 la Societe d'Horticiilturv d'Orteaus states that the castor 

 oil plant is an excellent remedy against flies in 

 dwelling rooms. Flies tliat alight on the leaves and 

 suck ihe sa I fall down dead, their bodies changing 

 to white. Rooms in which flies are very numerous 

 ai'e by this means soon freed of them. — Quicjixlandir. 

 [Castor oil plants grown on UdapoUa, Liberian coffee 

 estate, were rooted out, because they became in- 

 fested with insects, — Ed.] 

 72 



Vaccination op Plants.— The anti-vaccinators are 

 threatened with a new application of the systi-m 

 they dread so much. Only this time it is plants 

 which are to be vaccinated I M. VoUant, a French 

 chemist, has just published in one of the Fr.-neh 

 scientific journals an account of how he produced all 

 the effects of grafting by simply transfusing the sap 

 of the deeired variety of fruit tree into thesel-cled 

 stock. He gives the title of " vaccination of plants' 

 to his process. — Aitstrala.nan. 



CoFFEB IN West Cooro, Mercara, 17th Nor. — The busy 

 season i.s now upon us, and the late heavy monsoon, which 

 may be said to have left us, ahout the middle of October, has 

 been followed by cloudy weather, little sun, au'l cold winds 

 from the north that has considerably kept back the coflee 

 berries from ripening. Picking will not be general, until 

 the middle of December, wliicb is a month later than the 

 average of former years. This could be borne without much 

 grunibling. for a late season m:iy signify higher prices 

 realised at the London sales; though, as a rule, it s the 

 first shipments in January that sell the best. Matters are 

 looking far from favorable, for the crop has been lo.^t, h v- 

 ing set or dropped from the trees in the fearful deluije of 

 June, July, and August; there was as magnifici'Bt. a display 

 of blosscin ai could send a thrill to any planter's heart: hut 

 the recollection of that thrill is the only result lie can now 

 lay claim to. Not a single berry hai matured from tlio^e 

 flowers. A neighbouring coffee estate has registered 319 

 inches of rain since the l-"ith of May: and three miles mrther 

 to the north, and more in contact, if possible, with tl.o .fout'.i- 

 west monsoon winds, 411 inches were marked down. A 

 brahmin writer is living out there in charge, he may have 

 made a slight error in the prodigious total, but be persists 

 in saying it is quite correct, ( In July alone 163 inches f II.) 

 Howerer there, in 1879, 40 acres were pbmted with coffee, 

 (previou-ly felled and burnt), the trees throve well and 

 vigorously with the rainfall under 250 inches : when it ex- 

 ceeded that, as was the case this year, the berries rotted off 

 and the sturdy primaries decayed and died off clo-e to the 

 stem a footanda half above the ground; hut, instcd ofwlii'e 

 weeds .and Spanish needles, which infest any new clearing, 

 the whole ground spruna: into hfe with tine cardamom ]d ants, 

 growing as spoutaneonsly as grass. These have been for the 

 past t.o years carefully transplanteil into the frest, and 

 the maiden crop will be iiathered next year. On the sul ject 

 of cardamoms, I may say that the picking season is over, it 

 finished in the latter end of October, iheou'-turn was very 

 scanty, but of excellent quality, the retail price in Mercara 

 being high. £210 per lb. To resume — ceffee to the west of 

 Mercara has suffered terribly in Ihi' pa-)t three years; infir- 

 mity of the tn es, deterinrition of the soil, with the com- 

 bined di--favour of the elements, have co-operated disast. 

 rously on the fortunes of the owners of the land and what 

 was not many years ago the most flouiishing coffee tract in 

 the Coorg province, which was studded with fair estates, 

 blooming with luxuriant cotfce the envy of all new comers 

 and belioliier>, where successful planters learned in a hard 

 seliool the experience they carried aw ly to tlie richer and 

 more enervating climate of the bamboo, where fortunes 

 have been acquired with scornfulca.se, comp.ired to their 

 former vicissitudes here : here, — the ililigent Canare.se, first 

 served his apprentice^diip, gained his knowledge under the 

 practical eyeot out pioneer coffee phinte'S, learnt to wark 

 and to erdtire thepiiless 250 inches deluge of a North Coorg 

 monsoon, worked his way up from laborer or cooly to be 

 maislry and leaders of coidies. Here, stand the bung:ilows, 

 deserted by their masters, many roofle-s, many falling down, 

 some turned into a harbour of tefuy-e for the few coolies 

 necessary to grassknife and pluck the scanty crop; the rows 

 of cooly "lines ihat were once minia'ure Mysore villages, 

 busy with Iho hum of voices, the cl nigin? of the gold and 

 silversmiths, sturdy tom-tom's notes, ect., gay with its 

 cheering variety of colored dresses. All. all have gone, 

 save one or two estates, that stood steadfast, w.iiting to the 

 last, hoping acainst hope, for the holt-^r (imes which never 

 came. The lasting productiveness and munilicent returns 

 of that happy land, the bamboo, is owlns, not so much to the 

 superb soil, which so nobly repays yonr toil and labour, but 

 to the iracticil thrift, knowledge and tact which thepLiu- 

 ters and their mai.stries ])0-^ses3ed, when they emigiated 

 from the north-east and have there turned the expsrience 

 toso good an acconnt. — Madras Timts, 



