January i, 1883.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



607 



and leaving the manufacture to others. For a long time 

 to come there seems no possibility of vacuum-pan Sugar 

 selling here at an average of less than £25 per ton, and 

 advanced planters have thus ample time to make their 

 fortunes, liowever closely Beet may compete with them. 

 As to the Sugar-produciug capabilities of the West Indies, 

 they are obviously in their infancy. The very moun- 

 tainous island of Mauritius, with au area of 71:i squnre 

 miles, makes. 120,000 tons. The area of the West ludies, 

 excluding the Bahamas, but including Trinidad, is 7,-112 

 miles, and if tliey made prortionately as much Sugar as 

 Mauritius, their produce would be 1,250,000 tons a year. 

 Jamaica, with its area of 4.193 square miles, could grow 

 on the Mauritian scale 5OO,O0U tons of Sugar ; and Trinidad, 

 with 1,754 miles, could produce 250,"00 tons. The entire 

 exports of all the islands but together is under 200,000 

 tons a year — a sufficient proof of their backward character. 

 A profit of 12s. per cwt. has as yet been insufficient to 

 indut^e more than say twenty planters in the whole of 

 the West Indian Islands to adopt vacuum-pans and other 

 modern machinery; and if this state of things continues 

 much longer. Beet will progress with giant strides, the 

 Fabricants will find out how to make it fit for direct 

 consumption, and the growers of the old-fashioned Cane 

 Sugar will be really ruined at last.— Produce Markets^ lievieio. 



CEYLON FLORICULTURE. 



(Written fi-om the Ramhoda District, ifiiiO feet elevation.) 

 Sir, — For some years past I have been endeavouring 

 to raise a few flowers by way of variation with the cotfee 

 and cinchona, from which I make ray living. I am a good 

 deal puzzled at certain ditficulties that have arisen, and 

 should be very glad to have a hint or two from any of 

 your readers who can help me. Why. for instance, should 

 so many plants grow luxuriantly and never flower with me, 

 when they do so at a little distance away ; and what 

 treatment should they receive to make them flower ? Carua- 

 tioQs .and pelargoniums flower at Nuwara Eliya freely, 

 whereas the former grow here by the yard and possibly 

 give a poor flower or two at long intervals. A few of them, 

 notably a very dark red one, flower freely. Another, a 

 clove I bijlieve, grew fully 7 feet long in a spiral, round 

 a support, and gave a bunch of poor flowers. As for 

 pelargoniums, it is almost the same, except that I have 

 n !ver, in over 22 years, seen a single flower in the district. 

 Now what should be done? Should these carnations, &c., 

 be kept very wet, or rather drier than usual, say under 

 CJver in a verandah ; in poor soil, or rich with manure ? 

 I tried ouce lately, gravelly soil and little water, and 

 the cuttings died. Then again from Colombo I have a 

 wax plant, two or three of them; they have exactly the 

 same leaves on them as they had when put in nearly 

 two years ago ; they have not grown an inch, they have 

 not put out any new leaves, nor have they lost any, and 

 they are healthy looking specimens too. What can be 

 done with these to make them grow? 



There is that beautiful antigonon creeper. It flowers 

 freely at Gampola, but here the shoots grow a foot or 

 S) long and there they stay. A friend in Colombo says 

 " keep cutting them down." Well, I tried one or two ; 

 up came the shoots again and there they remain, about 

 3 inches long, and don't seem inclined to grow a bit 

 longer. Faschias flower freely here, but of seven varieties 

 I have, one, the commonest of all, cuttings and plants, 

 moved and let alone, cut down, allowed to grow 10 or 

 12 feet high ; it's all the same, they wou't flower. The 

 other six varieties are the admiration of all visitors. Whilst 

 writing of this fus;hia, I miiy mention having brought 

 dowu from the Pass a good thick branch, about the thickness 

 of my thumb, and cut, say, 10 inches of it, and suspended 

 it in a bottle of water, in the same way we get oleander 

 plants. This piece of ifuschia stick has thrown out minute 

 leaves from the eyes, and with them are now appeariuc 

 flower buds There are no leaves except those just comin^^, 

 and there are no roots. A hint or two about the manage- 

 ment of such plants will be very interesting. Now we come 

 to seeds. In September I put out a quantity of Engli.sh 

 seeds, they came up'very satisfactorily, but when the con- j 

 tinuous cold rain of early October came on, the seedlings i 

 with the sole exception of a few zinias, entirely disappeared, 

 though, curious to relate, Ceylon grown seed stood the 



rain. Planting a circle of phlox seed, there was sufficient 

 only of the English seed to go two-thirds roiuid, Ceylon 

 grown seed filled up the remainiug third. Thiy all came 

 up, as far as I could see, equally well. Now the only 

 ones remaining are the Ceylon seedlings, and they are 

 doing well. Whilst mentioning phlox, I have proof of 

 how flower seeds " sport," as well as cinchonas. Last 

 year I was lamenting the loss of the pure white phlox 

 — not one to be seen for six months. What was to be 

 done ? By and bye a white phlox appeared, then a month 

 or two later another, till I had 4 or 5. These were carefully 

 marked and seed carefully gathered and sown separately. 

 They came up in every variety, red, white, and variegated. 

 Then the dhalias, they seem to go back to two colours, 

 a purple red, and red orange. It was hard to believe 

 that the sort that gave a variegated white, or other colour, 

 should next time come up an orange, but it's a fact. 



The only gardener here about says the proper way is 

 to take cuttings of dahlias, and certainly he has some 

 uncommonly fine ones when mine are given up in despair. 

 Floriculture in a season like this is very disappointing. 

 It is hardly an exaggeration to say that there has not 

 been a single 24 hours without rain since 20th May last, 

 and for 3 mouths the wind was constant and cold. Never- 

 theless, with care and constant attention, one can just 

 keep the garden alive, and have a few flowers when the 

 sun does condescend to shine. One terrible enemy is the 

 dull black grub, which cuts the young plants or shoots 

 just above ground. The other day we took eleven from 

 a little bed hardly a couple of feet in diameter. Every 

 day half a dozen or more are destroyed, still we find 

 plant after plant cut. I am told these are the larvae of 

 a brown moth, and I should like to know the moth when 

 I see it, if anyone will tell me, tliat I may slaughter 

 it when I have a chance. I .saw a very curious struggle 

 between a moth and some ants. A dozen or so black 

 ants had seized a moth by the tail end, and they were 

 all holding on to each other, and the ground and a weed. 

 Four or five had hold of the moth and the others held 

 on to these, and kept their hold, whilst one or two were 

 turning a string round the .stem of the weed. It seemed 

 as if this string was the silk which they were drawing 

 from the moth itself. Anyhow they had it as a purchase 

 round the weed, and effectually tethered the moth to it. — 

 D. E., 1st November. — "Ceylou Times." 



THE JAPANESE PEPPERMINT PLANT. 



BY E. M. HOLMES, F.L.S., 



Curator of the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society of 

 Great Britain. 

 When examining some leaves of this plant, presented, 

 together with a series of Japanese drug.s, to the Museum 

 of the Pharmaceutical Society, by Messrs. Christy and Co., 

 in 1879, I thought it desirable to compare them with 

 those of the plant which is stated to yield the Chinese 

 oil of peppermint. Through the courtesy of the keeper 

 of the Kew Herbarium, I was permitted to taste a frag- 

 ment of a leaf of the Chinese plant and of one of Blume's 

 specimen of M. arvensis, L., var. Javanica, the plant to 

 which this peppermint is referred in ' Pharmacographia.' 

 To my surprise I found that neither Blume's specimen 

 nor any others of the same plant from various localities 

 had the taste of peppermint, but possessed a flavour 

 similar to that of the garden mint (3f. viridis). Judging 

 that the Japanese plant could not belong to Jf. arvensis, 

 var. Javanica, I referred to the Japanese work 'Zo IMokou 

 Zoussetz,' in which the Japanese peppermint plant is stated 

 to be Mentha arvtnsis, var. vuli/aris, Benth, On tasting the 

 type specimen of this plant at Kew, I fo<md that this 

 also did not possess the taste of peppermint, but only 

 that peculiar to European specimens of M. arvensis. I 

 therefore wrote to China and Japan for specimens of the 

 peppermint plants of those countries. After the lapse of 

 more than a year, Mr. C. Ford, the director of the 

 Botanical Gardens at Hong Kong, was able to procure a 

 flowering specimen of the China plant for me, but no 

 specimens of the .Japanese plant could be procured 

 by my correspondents. Mr. T. Christy, however, after 

 having first obtained seeds of the plant, attempted to grow 

 them, without success, but was ultimately, and after con- 

 siderable difficulty, able to procure from Japan living plants 



