July i, 1884.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



FLORIDA PER CONTRA. 



TO THE EDITOK OF TUE "FIELD." 



Sir, — In your paper of March 15 I see a letter under the 

 above head, which it would be hardly worth while to notice, 

 were it not that it might mislead some people who read 

 it hurriedly. Here are some of the statements : — "Orange 

 groves, for instance, take an immense time to really pay." 

 Who but a child, or a grown person talking to children, 

 would find it necessary to explain that orange trees do not 

 bear and " really pay " the first year they are planted — that 

 they are not cereals, in fact ? AVho else would find it 

 incumbent to make the statement that " Lemons, besides 

 taking time to bear, want a lot of knowledge as to proper 

 time of picking." That lemon trees take time to bear is 

 so obvious as to be hardly worth insisting upon, but that 

 they also ''want a lot of knowledge" on any subject re- 

 quires proof. " Citrons cannot pay unless there is a factory 

 near for the peel." It might as well be said that citrous 

 cannot pay if you leave them to fall and rot on the ground. 

 " Pomeloes and shaddocks do not seem to be in much 

 demand." Oddly enough, this is to some extent the case 

 with crab-apples in England and wild mangoes in India. 

 It is incorrect to say that this year all tropical plants 

 were killed by frost in the neighbourhood of Leesburg. 

 I myself have many tropical plants which have survived the 

 winter. Fever and ague and dysentery are, and always 

 will be, common enough no doubt in a semi-tropical or 

 tropical country, amongst those people who choose to reside 

 on the borders of swamps and live on bad food, bad water, 

 and worse whiskey. No one is obliged to run this risk 

 any more than he is obliged to buy " rotten furniture " 

 or "clothes unsuited to the climate." That each and all 

 these things are done is not the fault of Florida. Your 

 correspondent states that yellow fever is at all times ready 

 to break out in Florida, even in the interior. As it never 

 has broken out in the interior, one is at a loss to under- 

 stand how he arrives at this conclusion. I have had some 

 experience of yellow fever in the West Indies, and, as 

 everyone knows, it is carried from one seaport to another ; 

 but in each the most careful quarantine regulations are 

 in force, and I for one never heard of an instance of 

 yellow fever breaking out in the interior of any country. 

 I make no covleur-de-rose statements with regard to Florida. 

 It is enough to tell any thinking man that the winter 

 climate here is delightfully perfect, and that it is within 

 two or three days' journey of New York and many other 

 northern cities, the' winter climate of which is detestable ; 

 that an orange grove costs a little money and a good deal 

 of time, or a good deal of money and no time to acquire, 

 and when acquired is a good and sound investment.' If 

 he believes this much only, he must see that the future 

 of Florida rests on a solid basis, and that it must become 

 a very thriving State in the near future.— C. Nutcombe 

 Gould, Zephyr Lake, Leesburg, Sumter Co., Florida, U. 

 S. A., April 9. 



> 



CHARDUAR RUBBER PLANTATION IN ASSAM. 



On the 21st February last. Mr. (Uistav Mann. Conserv- 

 ator of Forests, Assam, submitted to the Chief Commis- 

 sioner a report on the Charduar rubber plantation in the 

 District of Darrang, including its past history, the results 

 gained, and a sketch of his views as to the future treat- 

 ment and extension of that plantation. The following ex- 

 tracts are interesting: — The total area of the Charduar 

 caoutchouc plantation is now 892 acres, and has cost RG4,351 

 or R72 per acre. This is abnormally high, since much of 

 the work during the first five years had to be clone twice 

 over, and sometimes ofteuer, because the planting of caout- 

 chouc trees was new, and everything had to be learned 

 and found out by experiments, which naturally took some 

 time. But matters have changed in this respect. We know 

 now what we are about, and the officer in charge of this 

 work, Mr. T. J. Campbell, has estimated the cost of the 

 extension which is at present being carried out at R29 per 

 acre, to which another R6 for subsequent cultivation and 

 clearing should be added, bringing the cost, including every- 

 thing, up to R35 per acre. 



Besides the experimental nature of the work, to which 

 the cost of R72 per acre of this plantation must to a great 

 extent be attributed, we have also prepared extensive nurs- 

 eries, covering an area of about -v acres, and containing 

 2 



some 184,000 plants of different sizes, which is Bulhcient 

 to extend the plantation by 2(10 acres per annum tor the 

 next 15 years, or a square mile per annum for the next 

 5 years, if desired, and these nurseries have been BO planted 

 that, if for special reasons it is considered advisable not 

 to extend the plantation at any particular time, the trees 

 can be kept almost stationary for 15 to 20 years without 

 becoming less suited for transplanting— a particular advant- 

 age enjoyed by Ficus elastica in common with other semi- 

 epiphytes as compared with ordinary trees. To make an 

 even approximately correct estimate of the probable revenue 

 that may be expected from these plantations, it is first 

 and foremost necessary to know what a rubber tree will 

 yield, and on this point our information is most imperfect. 

 The statements made by rubber collectors are quite un- 

 reliable, and the exhausted state of the naturally grown 

 rubber trees has prevented us until last year from making 

 experiments ; the result of last year's experimental tap- 

 ping, as recorded in Appendix IX of last Annual Forest 

 Report il8.->2-8:;>, interesting as it is, and much as it has 

 iucieased our knowledge of the yield of caoutchouc from 

 Funis elastica. still leaves us in considerable doubt on the 

 subject, as has been stated in paragraph US of that Re- 

 port. However, so much is certain, that a full grown 

 rubber tree of about 50 years old will yield at the very 

 lowest 5 seers of rubber, if very carefully tapped, and tins 

 quantity may be, expected about sixteen times, which will 

 be an equally safe estimate for calculating the yield of a 

 rubber tree. To be quite on the safe side, I will only 

 calculate ten trees per acre, which would give us about 20 

 rnaunds of rubber from every acre. This, at the price 

 at which rubber was collected last year in the Darrang 

 District and sold, and deducting the expenditure incurred 

 on collecting it, would give us a net profit of R54 per 

 mauud, or Rl,080 per acre in 50 years, and if the rubber 

 trees have a longer life, the yield may be reckoned for 

 their remaining years of life at the same, if not at a higher 

 rate. An acre of first-class timber trees would cost about 

 double as much to plant and maintain at the rate of 60 

 trees per acre ; and taking the value of the trees at R10 

 each (the present royalty charged), this would give us 

 R600 only, as compared with Rl,080 from rubber, and 

 most of the first-class timber-trees will require 100 years 

 to reach maturity, or double the time of a rubber tree. 

 This means, in other words, especially if the compound 

 interest on the capital used is taken into consideration, 

 that an acre planted with rubber-trees will give about four 

 times as much revenue as an acre planted with first-class 

 timber trees. It may be, and in fact has been, argued 

 that rubber might be produced artificially, and that thus 

 a fall in the price might be brought about. I think there 

 is little to be feared in this respect, not more so than 

 timber has to fear from the extended use of iron; and 

 rubber, being a raw product, has a great advantage, in- 

 asmuch as the artificially-produced article would have all 

 the cost of manufacture added to the cost of the raw 

 materials, and I myself have not the slightest fear in this 

 respect. The price of rubber has been very high for many 

 years now, and during this time it is known that effort 

 have been made to produce artificial rubber, but that they 

 have failed. It now only remains for me to consider the 

 value of Ficus elastica as compared with other trees yield- 

 ing rubber both as regards quality and quantity, and al- 

 though it must be admitted that the' rubber yielded by 

 our indigenous tree is slightly inferior to that from some 

 other rubber trees, the difference is so little that in my 

 opinion it has nothing to fear in thi6 respect, and as to 

 the quantity yielded by other species we have positively 

 no authentic information to make comparison; but am very 

 doubtful whether any of them will yield more than Ficus 

 elastica, and certainly the difference, if any, could not be 

 so much as to make the cultivation of the latter unadvis- 

 ahle.—Madras Mail. 



DISCLOSED FROM THE QUININE MARKET. 



In consequence of the rupture of the union of all the 

 most eminent quinine manufactures of tin' world, which 

 occurred in January last, the price of this medicine has 

 greatly declined, audit may be supposed that. unl< 

 manufacturers come to a new agreement, it will shortly go 

 down considerably lower. The first reduction of the price 



