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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1884. 



Elsewhere we publish au interesting and important 

 review of the condition and productions of Tonquiu, 

 specially written for the Daily Press by ^ " Shway 

 Yoe" whose contributions to the St. James's Gazette 

 over that nom de plume on Burmah and its population 

 some time ago excited considerable attention. A perusal 

 of this article, which is the result of observations 

 taken during the last few months in Tonquin, will 

 afford the reader a good idea of the value of the 

 territory just acquired by the French. Our Gallic 

 friends, however, though they have undoubtedly gained 

 a prize, hardly seem to know what to do with it. 

 The expense of governing it will necessarily be great, 

 and to develop the trade and resources of the country 

 will require considerable capital, which does not exist 

 there at present. So far, too, few French merchants 

 have been attracted to Tonquin, and French capit- 

 alists are notoriously averse to investments in dis- 

 tant countries ; much preferring low interest and un- 

 deniable security in la belle France. The spirit of enter- 

 prise—so far as the French nation is concerned — seems 

 to centre in and be confined to French engineers. 

 These gentlemen are always skilful, eager, aud sanguine; 

 they are undaunted by obstacles, and the greater the 

 difficulties in the way the more anxious they appear 

 to commeucethe work. Not so with French merchants, 

 who for the most part stay at home. The town of 

 Saigon has now for many years been the capital and 

 chief port of a large French colony, but, although a 

 large trade in rice has sprung up there, there is but 

 one firm of French merchants in the place ; and the 

 same thing promises to be repeated in Haiphong. Wine 

 simps and stores are multiplying in Hanoi and Hai- 

 phong, but merchants, with capital are conspicuous by 

 their absence. It is possible, of course, that some 

 French capitalists may be tempted to go out to 

 Tonquin to take part in mining enterprises, which 

 may also prove remunerative, but it is doubtful 

 whether the mercantile community there will be 

 much reinforced by French firms intending to carry 

 on legitimate import and export business. The priv- 

 ileges which are to be secured to French traders 

 over the frontier with the three provinces impinging 

 on Tonquin may serve perhaps to attract some ad- 

 venturous spirits, but it is more probable that the 

 harvest — such as it may be — will be mainly reaped by 

 British, German, and Chinese merchants. The French 

 may, however, endeavour to prevent the fruits of 

 their conquest eluding their grasp, and seek to handi- 

 cap foreigners on the race ; but they cannot shut them 

 out entirely, and must eventually be content to see 

 the commerce of the country developed by others 

 if they fail to accomplish the task themselves. In 

 any case, whether the trade of Tonquiu is developed 

 by means of French or foreign capital, Hongkong 

 is pretty sure to benefit from it indirectly, as that 

 colony will continue, as it has proved in the past, 

 to be the gate to the trade of the Far East. At the 

 same time, while there is good reason to believe that, 

 in Bpite of Gallic jealousy, British merchants will 

 participate in the advantages which the opening up 

 of Tonquin, and free communication with Western 

 China will confer, it will be sound policy for the 

 British Government to seize the opportunity which the 

 anarchy in Burmah— arising out of King Theebaw^s 

 atrocities and misrule — affords, and advance their 

 frontier to that of China thus placing themselves in 

 a position to claim the same commercial privileges 

 which France is to secure in trading across the border. 

 — China Overland Trade Report. 



Papaw JrjicE.— Dr. Bouchat (Arch. Gen. de Med) 

 has found that loth the diluted juice and papaine 

 have the property of digesting living tissues, noimal 

 or pathological, such as adenomata and cancers, and 

 conveitiut them into peptone in exactly the same way 



as dead ones. It seems probable that this knowledge 

 may be turned to account in the treatment of cancer 

 and other abnormal growths. The false membrane 

 of croup and diphtheria removed by tracheotomy 

 and al?o worms, such as tape-worm and round-worms, 

 are attacked and digested in a few hours by thepapaw 

 juice. M. Wurtz states the papaine can digest 1,000 

 times its weight of moist fibrine, of which the greater 

 part is transformed by its action into a peptone. 

 Dr. Malcolm Morris has found this drug very useful 

 for BOttening hard corns, and in cases of warts and 

 psoriasis. The use of the fruit is believed to be beneficial 

 in cases of impaired digestion from torpidity of the liver. 

 The Enemies of the Cacao-tree. — We have never 

 heard of auy damage being done to coffee by the 

 tea bug, or green fly, so destructive on Indian 

 plantations, aud as yet Helopeltis Antonii seems to 

 have made no serious attacks on tea iu Ceylon. With 

 cacao the case seems different, and a good deal of 

 alarm at present prevails in regard to a black blight 

 which attacks the pods, and in some cases the twigs, 

 causing the latter to die back. The dying back' 

 of the branches, and in some cases the deal ha of 

 trees, we should rather feel inclined to attribute to 

 unsuitable soil or sub-soil, tearing winds being also 

 responsible for much damage to what seems to be 

 a delicate tree. But we fear there can be no question 

 that Helopeltis is responsible for much or most of 

 the Oamage done to the pods. In Java this insect 

 did much injury to tea and ciuchona plants, but we 

 did not hear it blamed for the black blight which 

 was bad in 1881 on the only extensive cacao plant- 

 ation in the colony. Here iu Ceylon Helopeltis 

 Antonii seems to have found in cacao food prefer- 

 able to that which tea or coffee presents. 



We have recently come across the record of the 

 early experiments with coffee-growing in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Calcutta to which we lately made refer- 

 ence. It appears that the grower of the coffee for- 

 warded a bag of it to the Directors of the East India 

 Company, who forwarded portions of it to different 

 produce-brokers in London, Messrs. Kiply and Brown, 

 and W. I. Thompson. The opinion pronounced by 

 these gentlemen was on the whole favourable, though 

 defects in the curing of the beans were pointed out. 

 The samples were valued at 02s. to 64s. per cwt., atatime 

 when ordinary native Ceylon coffee was worth only 54s. 

 to Otis. There are some remarks appended to these valu- 

 ations which strike us as being not quite in accor- 

 dance with facts in regard to the preparation of the 

 beans. Speaking of the speckled appearance of the 

 beans, one of the brokers says : "It appears to have 

 been soaked too long iu water, and afterwards to have 

 been exposed for a long time to the rays of the sun. 

 In the West Indies, the coffee, after having been 

 soaked, is laid on floors covered over to keep off 

 the rays of the sun, with the sides open to admit 

 the air and allow the moisture to escape : in this 

 process the greattst care is required iu the constant 

 and regular turning over of the coffee till it becomes 

 dry." the mistake here made is iu supposing that 

 the ci tt'ee beans removed from the inner skin are ex- 

 posed to the heat of the sun. The ooffee in the West 

 Indies has always been dried in the parchment skin 

 which prevents the beans from being bleached. When 

 they are perfectly hard and dry, they are placed in 

 a "peeling mill" which removes the white thin parch- 

 ment skiu, after which the beans are not exposed 

 to the suu, uor is there any occasion to do so, as 

 they are perfectly cured in the skin, aud will keep 

 in that statu for any period of time, preserving 

 their fresh green color. — Indian Agriculturist. 



" BUCHU-PAIBA. " 

 ( x >uick, complete cure, all annoying Kidney, Bladder and 

 Urinary Diseases. Druggists. B. S. Madon & Co., Bom- 

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