November 



[884.] 



THF. TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



1 9 



HOME-GROWN COFFEE IN QUEENSLAND. . 

 A correspondent sends us the following interesting 

 particulars: — Some years ago I lived at a place where 

 there were over a dozen coffee trees. We had more 

 labourers than there was work for, and to occupy the 

 men the coffee berries were gathered when turning brown. 

 After being quite red like a cherry they were roasted in 

 a pot, in which a little fat was put to keep them from 

 burning. Some of the beans had good coffee kernels, others 

 were empty ; the full berries did not roast so soon as the 

 empty ones, and they were sifted and after a time roasted 

 again. We had so many they were put in small barrels 

 and headed up. I had one opened a few days ago, and 

 they were as fresh as wheu newly put in. It makes good 

 coffee, and any farmer could grow his own coffee. There 

 is too much chaff in this for it to take in the market; 

 but if enough is put in aud allowed to infuse it makes 

 nice rich coffee, which no one refuses to drink. I grind 

 it in the corn-crusher at first, and if I wish it finer, I 

 put it through the coffee mill. It only requires to stand 

 longer when coarsely crushed. I found the coffee trees 

 grew best when they were sheltered from the westerly 

 winds, and did not catch the morning sun in winter. If 

 you would like to see the berries I can take you some 

 when I go to town. AVhere I now live it is too much 

 exposed to all winds to grow coffee, bananas, or cassava. — 

 Piantt r and farmer. 



THE KOLA NUT. 

 In "A furious and Exact Account of a Voyage to Congo, 

 in the Years 1H6G aud 1U67. By the R. R. F. F. Michael 

 Angelo of Gattina, and Denis de Oarli of Piacenza, Capu- 

 chins, and Apostolic Missionaries into the said Kingdom of 

 Congo," of which a translation is giveu in Vol. I. of 

 Churchill's Collection of Voyages and Travels (1704), there 

 is tin' following reference to the kola nut: — 



One day they brought me a quantity of round Roots like 

 our Trusses (iu English Pignuts), but these grow on Trees 

 and are as big as a Lemmou ; opening them, there appear 

 four or five such Nuts red within. To keep them fresh, 

 they put Earth about them ; wheu they will eat of them, 

 they wash them, taste a little of each, and drink of their 

 Water. In eating of them they have a little bitterishness, 

 but the Water drunk after makes them very sweet. In 

 their Language they call them Collet ; and I having ob- 

 served that the Portuguese made great account of them 

 at Loanda, had some sought out, and sent them to those 

 Gentlemen my good Patrons, who iu return sent me some 

 Presents come from Europe, 



In the translation (in the same collection of voyages, 

 Vol. V.) of "A Description of the Coasts of North and 

 South ( Juinea ; and of Ethiopia Inferior, vulgarly Angola," 

 by John Barbot, the following references to the nut are 

 made : — 



The Portugal •■« in this country make much use of the 

 fruit Kola, resembling a large chestnut in the rainy and 

 winter seasons, of which more hereafter. 



The Cola is a sort of fruit somewhat resembling a large 

 chestnut, as represented in the figure, which is of the 

 natural bigness. The tree is very tall and large, on which 

 this fruit grows, in clusters, ten or twelve of them to- 

 gether ; the outside of it red, with some mixture of blue, 

 and the inside, when cut, violet-colour and brown. It comes 

 once a year, is of a harsh sharp taste, but quenches the 

 thirst and makes water relish so well, that most of the 

 Blacks carry it about them, wheresoever they go, frequently 

 chewing, and some eat it all day, but forbear at night, 

 believiug it hinders their sleeping. The whole country 

 abounds in this Cola, which yields the natives considerable 

 profit, selling it to their neighbours up the inland, who, 

 as some Blacks told me, sell it again to a sort of white 

 men, who repair to them at a certain time of the year, 

 and take off great quantities of it. These white men are 

 supposed to be of Morocco or Barbary, for the English 

 of Beuce Island assured me there was a great quantity 

 carried yearly by land to Funis and Tripoli in Barbary, 



The Tot/low, which produces the famous fruit Cola, is of 

 an indifferent height, the trunk about five or six feet in 

 circumference. The Cola is a chestnut, as I have said 

 before, three or four growing together in a rind, each 

 divided from the other by a thin skin. The natives use 



62 



it much in their sacrifices or offerings to their idols and 

 in their conjurations, and have perpetually Some in their 

 mouth, either walking or sitting, to relish water tin better, 

 reckoning it very wholesome, as I have said before. The 

 Portuguese drive a great trade with it up the country. 



The fruit Kola, by the inhabitants of the coasl called 

 Jiorsi, grows here as in Worth-Guinea, but no so plenti- 

 fully. The Europeans of the coast call it cabbage-fruit. 

 I refer, for a further description of it, to what I have 

 treated thereof in the preceding book, speaking of Sierra 

 Leone. The Blacks are of opinion here, as well as there, 

 that chewing of it helps to relish water and palm-wine. 

 They do also commonly eat this Kola with salt ami mala- 

 guetta ; the sole virtue of that sorry fruit is its being 

 diuretic, but otherwise it is very harsh and almost bitter, 

 and draws the chewer's mouth almost close. Some pre- 

 tend this Kola agrees exactly with the taste ami virtue of 

 the Indian Betele or Anca, 



The Cola is the same as in Guinea, and so very plenti- 

 ful, that they export vast quantities to Loanda in Angola, 

 all in their husk or rind, which preserves it a long time, 

 and is much valued there. 



ALLUVIAL SOILS AND THEIR MANAGEMENT. 

 [the reason why.] 



Alluvial soils are formed by those accumulations of sand, 

 earth and loose stones or gravel brought down by rivers, 

 which, when spread out to any extent, form what is called 

 alluvial land. The word is derived from the Latin verb 

 a/In,,,, signifying "to wash upon," as the sea does upon 

 the coasts. The richest alluvial soils are to be found near 

 the junction of large sluggish rivers with the sea, or where 

 they meet in the valleys through which they pass; and 

 the soil is most varied and heterogeneous in the composition 

 of its parts, when these are in minute divisions and intimately 

 blended together. The finest natural soils are thus formed 

 of numberless thin layers of mud by the overflowing of 

 rivers, and left to dry till the next overflowing brings a 

 fresh supply. 



Alluvial soils partake of the nature of the earth from 

 which the waters descend, or over which they spread. 

 They may be formed of a clay mud, or of a fine saud or 

 silt, or of a mixture of both, and the layers of these two 

 may alternate according as winds vary and sea currents 

 set in. Clay is more easily disintegrated than any other 

 mineral, and, therefore, always occurs abundantly in every 

 alluvial soih Marly, and all the newer calcareous rncks, 

 as the oolites and chalk, are easily washed down by the 

 rains and carried off by rivers. Sandstone and trap rock, 

 containing clay and lime; those granites, also, whose 

 felspar contains tin- alkaline silicates in abundance, are 

 easily decomposed by the rain water and other atmospheric 

 agents, and all their finer ingredients are carried by the 

 streams aud rivers to the great deposits near the sea. 

 Alluvial soils thus necessarily consist of minute or impalpable 

 particles of a great variety of minerals; for though the 

 predominating earth may in some be clay, in others lime, 

 and in sone saud, yet, derived as they are from all the 

 geological formations which the rivers and its tributaries 

 have traversed, they cannot fail of containing in dm- pro- 

 portion every ordinary ingredient. 



How may alluvial soils lie improved? Alluvial soils are 

 the most fertile of all natural deposits, and require a treat- 

 ment by which their fertility may he diminished, rather 

 than increased, together with protection from floods, to 

 which they are naturally liable. The treatment of them 

 must also be modified according to their nature. Alluvial 

 soils are of two kinds, one derived from the sediment of 

 fresh, the other of salt water. They will generally bear 

 crop after crop with little or no addition of manure, an, 1 

 with a very slight cultivation. It is in the alluvial soi's 

 principally that an accurate analysis is useful, because the 

 proportion of their constituent parts varies iu innumerable 

 degrees. It may he laid down as a general rule that the 

 most fertile of these soils are thnsp in which the primitive 

 earths are nearly iu equal proportions, silica being the most 

 abundant, with about 1" per cent of organic matter; a 

 greater proportion of the latter would from too loose and 

 spongy a soil to hear good crops of corn, especially of 

 wheat. T.ut 1 p<jr cent of humus, with a good mixttu of 

 earths, and some phosphate of lime from the decomposition 



