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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[October i, 1884. 



At Mr. Morresco's house aboul three miles from King's 

 House, there is a collection of about the same size and 

 containing very much the same plants as I have men- 

 tioned, but he has also Demlrobium macrophyllum gigant- 

 eum doing excellently. Mr. Morresco is a genuine lover 

 of Orchids, and means importing and tryiug to acclimatise 

 a great many more genera of Orchids than we have yet 

 seen in Jamaica. 



The island on the whole is in a bad way : labour is scarce 

 on account of the emigration of the nigger to the Panama 

 Canal, but that will soon right itself. .Sugar is down and 

 going down; rum is nut paying well; but fortunately for 

 the landowners on the north side of the island an enormous 

 trade has sprung up with the United States in Bananas. 

 The Cocoa-nuts are still exported in great quantities, and 

 the demand for them increases in the States rather than 

 diminishes, so that each Cocoa Palm is said to be worth 

 a dollar a year, and if it grows near one of the small but 

 excellent harbours of the island, it undoubtedly is worth 

 a dollar a year. A retired M. D. had some land left him 

 near Annotto Bay, he added on to the property by pur- 

 chase, and without any idea of gain, but merely for their 

 beauty, began planting Cocoa Palms. Now he is one of 

 the richest men on the island. When taking stock of his 

 i'.ilms he is said to have lost count at 130,01)0, but I will 

 not guarantee the truth of the number; however, the whole 

 uf Ins land is covered with palms. Coasting schooners 

 earn »»u the trade with the mainland in Cocoa-nuts, and 

 they take them with their outer husks on, and they give 

 5s. per 100 for them delivered on the beach. 



But for the more perishable Bauana fast crew steamers 

 are employed, fitted up in their holds like cellars with 

 bins and strong air pumps for refrigerating purposes. The 

 " Banana King," as an ex-captain of a small trading schooner 

 lias been nicknamed, resides at Port Antonio ; he began 

 life as a seaman, and rose to be captain of his own schooner. 

 His first attempt in the Banana trade was made about 

 ten years ago, when he carried .some sixty bunches to 

 Charleston, and found it a profitable trade. He com- 

 menced then to buy up every bit of land he could near 

 Port Antonio, and planted Bananas; gradually he bought j 

 screw steamers, and now he is buying up all the land near | 

 Morant Bay and Port Morant, where he is also planting j 

 Bananas. When he has not sufficient Bananas of his own \ 

 to fill one of his steamers, he scours the country round to 

 buy up those of his poorer neighbours, and one day that ! 

 1 was with him he was giving from 2s tid. to 3s. a bunch 

 to make up a cargo. The profits m this trade amount to 

 about 50 per cent on the capital employed, when you own 

 your own steamers and have your own Banana plantations. 

 The Banana bears the second year, and requires very little 

 in its cultivation, and consequently entails very little ex- 

 pense. A large trade is also springing up in Oranges, 

 now that care has been exercised in selecting the right 

 varieties. 



The Orange tree flourishes best in the higher parts of 

 the island, from an elevation of 1,500—2,500 feet; for- 

 merly they would not bear export from the rough way in 

 which they were handled and packed, but now, from the " 

 great care employed, Jamaica oranges can compete with 

 those from Florida in any of the great centres of the State ; 

 they are of the most delicious flavour, and very large in 

 size. Limes grow everywhere in the island up to an alti- 

 tude of 2,000 feet, and Shaddocks do also very well. The 

 climate of the north side of the island is charming — to 

 my mind the most charming hi the world ; a deliciously 

 cool sea-breeze springs up about 8 a.m., and blows until 

 4 p.m., when there is a lull, and about 8 p.m. a softer 

 land breeze begins to blow and lasts until 4 a.m. Steph- 

 anotis blooms most luxuriantly, and Marechal Niel Roses 

 attain to a size and colour and substance of blossom un- 

 equalled anywhere. I cut one morning seventy blossoms 

 from a three-year-old plant— any one of which would have 

 been a prize winner at a London Rose Show. Tea Roses, 

 such as Niphetos, Homer, &c, also do equally well. Yams 

 and other vegetables a rich planter does not find it worth 

 his while to cultivate, and he buys them all from his negro 

 cottagers, and there is no attempt at a regular kitchen 

 garden throughout the island. 



The hotel accommodation throughout is very bad, and 

 there would be an excellent opening for British capital 

 in this line, particularly as the Canadians and some of the 



Northern Americans have taken to spending the winter in 

 the island, and avoiding the rigours of the American 

 season. Some of the beauties of Jamaica, in the way oi 

 waterfalls and lovely natural dells, I have passed over ; but 

 any one going out there cau easily make themselves ac- 

 quainted with them from the excellent handbook of the 

 island published under the authority of the Government. — 

 E. W. Walker. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 



THE INFLUENCE OF FORESTS ON CLIMATE. 



The advantages attending the conservation of forests and 

 the benefits to be derived from there-afforesting of denuded 

 lauds are subjects that annually, when the season for plant- 

 ing arrives, excite a considerable amount of agitatiou, the 

 result of which has been, so far, much talking and writing, 

 but very little action. It needs no argument to prove 

 that the better a country is wooded the greater is its 

 value in an ecouomical sense, and it would be difficult to 

 fix a limit at which tree planting should stop, especially 

 in a country like Australia, where, in some parts, timber 

 is naturally scarce, while, in nearly all parts, it is rapidly 

 becoming still more scarce, through the devastating action 

 of human beings, forced on by the needs of a high civilis- 

 ation. There can be no difference of opinion as to the wisdom 

 of economy in the use of timbered land or of maintaining 

 its existence in a progressive state, but the advocates of 

 tree conservation and tree planting are apt to claim too 

 much for forests,and in addition to their commercial value, 

 rank them as the chief or almost the sole regulators of 

 climate and rainfall. As evidence iu favor of their views 

 they bring forward the cases of Palestine, Mexico and other 

 countries, once the seats of teeming populations, and where 

 agriculture was carried on in the greatest perfection, which 

 are now little better than deserts, owing, as they say, to 

 the denudation of forest lands and consequent lessening 

 of the rainfall, but a careful study of history dispels the 

 illusion by showing that such is not the fact. The decrease 

 of population and the destruction of the works of ages of 

 civilisation were the acts of conquering hordes of barbaiians 

 in both the cases quoted, as well as in Peru, the north 

 of Africa and other parts of the earth. At the present 

 time the annual rainfall at Jerusalem is til inches, very 

 much greater than the average of Victoria, and nearly 

 double that of some parts of this country where agriculture 

 is carried on with advantage, and though Palestine may 

 be considered comparatively barren, it is quite capable of 

 being again rendered "a land flowing with milk and honey," 

 were it freed from the misgovernment of its oppressors. 

 The same causes have produced similar results in Mexico 

 and Peru, where, from the ostensible desire to Christianise 

 the inhabitants who have been more than decimated, and 

 the laud reduced to the condition in which it is found 

 today. It is frequently put forward that the rainfall of 

 the country is declining, but that is a hazardous assertion, 

 for a long series of years of measurement is required to 

 enable any one to speak with certainty on that point; and, 

 indeed, a large amount of evidence to the contrary might 

 be brought forward. Mr. Russell, Government Astronomer 

 of New South AVales, has stated, from actual observation, 

 that "the years 179D-180O and 1801 were three dry years 

 in succession, as were 1818-1819 and 1820. That Lake 

 George, which in 1820 was a magnificent sheetof water, 

 was then said by the aborigines to have been seeu dry ; 

 in 1824 it was 20 miles long and 8 miles wide, and was 

 found by Sir Thomas Mitchell in 183ti to be a grassy meadow 

 with dead timber on it; to become subsequently a sheep 

 and cattle run, and to be again in 1874 a greater lake than 

 ever." And the conclusions arrived at by Mr. Russell and 

 others are that timber is the result of rainfall and con- 

 ditions of soil. It U not a cause of rainfall. That in those 

 countries where the forests have been more largely cleared, 

 as Australia, Canada, and the United States, the climate 

 has not been affected thereby. That in Australia two con- 

 ditions affect rainfall, namely, distance from the coast and 

 altitude, and that these conditions are true, no matter 

 whether applied to plains or timbered land. Mr. Elleiy, 

 our Government Astronomer, in a paper on the influence 

 of forests on rainfall, read before the Royal Society of 

 Victoria, remarks that "the full significance of this question 

 only presses on the public mind at times of drought and 

 water famine; it has, however, occupied the attention of 



