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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[January i, 1885. 



In 1858 M. de Troguindy purchased at Plouaret, in the 

 north of France, a property of 500 acres. It was a valley 

 half marsh, half underwood ; he drained and reclaimed, tried 

 several systems of culture, till at last he " struck ile." He 

 resolved to cultivate only green crops and fat stock, and 

 very little cereals. Thus in 1871 he produced through stock 

 at the rate of 3 cvvt. of meat per acre, and in 1880 nearly 

 double that amount. The forage crops on which he relies, 

 and sown to come into use in due season are rape rye, 

 ray-grass, crimson and ordinary red clovers, cabbage — the 

 lion aud thousand-headed varieties, and furze or whins. 

 Beet aud turnips follow in his rotation, and yield 30 to 35 

 tons per acre, the cabbage from 25 to 30 tons. 



There is a tendency to cultivate cabbage more extens- 

 ively than hitherto for cattle feeding. It is a very profit- 

 able crop near large towns for culinary purposes. No veget- 

 able can be healthier ; it is very rich in potash. In France 

 a very nutritive soup is prepared with cabbage, potatoes, 

 bread, aud a little bacon. The French always give in cook- 

 ing cabbage a good preliminary scald ; this first water de- 

 prives it of much of its strong flavour. In the lands watered 

 by the Mense and the Rhine, and their tributaries, im- 

 mense plains of rich, argillaceous, and marly soil are cropped 

 with cabbage destined to prepare. Saurkraut or choucroute, 

 in other words fermented cabbage, aud of which more anon. 

 A good, white, close, cannon-ball — hardness of head is aimed 

 at. In February a plot of 120 square yards, in the kitchen 

 garden or a home field, is well prepared and manured ; 3i 

 ounces of seed is sown broadcast and raken in, the whole 

 being covered with a slight coating of well-decomposed 

 straw manure to keep the surface moist; if the spring be 

 dry a watering may be necessary. That quantity of seed 

 ought to yield about 15,000 plants. 



The soil for planting out having the requisite tilth by 

 ploughing, harrowing, and rolling, aud enriched with 25 

 tons of farmyard manure per acre, the plants are dibbled 

 in lines 32 inches asunder, selecting a humid day in April 

 for the work. The after-culture consists in keeping the 

 land clean. At the close of October the cabbage is fit for 

 harvesting ; each head is turned over on itself ; a man fol- 

 lows to cut off the root and all green leaves; then they 

 are piled in the cart, looking like snow balls, and to market. 

 The selling price is from 20 to 30 fr. per 100, and if the 

 yield per acre be taken at 6,000 heads, and the price 20 fr. 

 per 100, the return will be satisfactory, as the expenses of 

 cultivation and rent are about 280 fr. per acre. 



Anglo-Saxons have yet to learn the utility of choucroute 

 as an aliment; it is " grateful and comforting," and withal 

 nutritive ; it is an excellent aid during the winter and spring 

 when vegetables run short. It is a standing dish on Con 

 tin.en.tal tables. Then it is easily prepared ; two imple- 

 ments : one to cut the stalk clean out, without disfiguring 

 the head, aud the other, a kind of jack-plane, with mov- 

 able knives, to share the cabbage held in a bench into 

 the necessary strips or shreds. These are put into a barrel 

 having a false bottom, the empty space to be filled with 

 water and changed in eight or ten days ; place a layer of 

 the shreds with alternate sprinkling of salt, aud add some 

 juniper berries ; cover the top well with stones— not cal- 

 careous—placing a cloth over the surface of the upper layer. 

 In ten or fifteen days it will be sufficiently fermented and 

 can be used : 1 lb. of salt to 1 cwt. of " shavings." 



To cook: wash it well with water several times and press 

 the mass strongly, then place in a saucepan with some 

 butter, lard is preferable, or even goose fat, simmer during 

 five hours. A large quantity can be prepared at once, as 

 it keeps well and re-heats admirably. With a slice of 

 bacon, a sausage, &c , families and farm servants can feast 

 like a king on the dish. 



Implement lairs are progressing in France ; to these are 

 now to be added Ambulatory Libraries of the best agri- 

 cultural works. 



The Exhibition of 1889 will give an extensive develop- 

 ment on this occasion to the agricultural section. It is not 

 unlikely that a special building in the suburbs will bo de- 

 voted to implements and machinery, and no expense spared 

 to test exhibits at work. 



The supply of wine being now short in France, many 

 farmers have planted orchards and so prepare cider. The 

 latter is prepared by families to be adulterated and arti- 

 ficial beverages baptized wine, and which are innocent of all 

 jelatiouship with grapes. The pulp residue is employed for 



cattle feeding. Bossingault attests that very good eaux-de- 

 vie can be obtained by preserving the residue in vats, well 

 compressed, during six months, and then distilling the fer- 

 mented mass. Blade -into a compost it is excellent as a 

 top-dressing for meadows in the month of March ; a little 

 lime is geuerally added to neutralize the anti-fertilizing 

 action of the tannin. 



Many cows have suffered this season from poppy poison- 

 ing. The evil can be corrected by administering a mixture 

 of vinegar, pure wine, and olive oil, to be followed later by 

 an infusion of strong coffee. 



This being the period for fattening grease, French farm- 

 ers — to remove the strong flavour naturally of the flesh, 

 a peculiarity with aquatic fowls — mix powdered charcoal 

 with the food a few weeks before killing. "Where the food 

 is oil cake, this corrective becomes a necessity. 



NATIVE AGRICULTURE AND IRRIGATION 

 IN CEYLON. 



If the native agriculturalists of Ceylon in their excus- 

 able ignorance will persist in jumbling together seed time 

 and harvest, and planting at a season of the year which 

 was never intended by Providence, and consequently fail 

 to produce a crop, without coming to the Government to 

 supply them with artificial means of irrigation, is the 

 Government, in its inexcusable ignorance of the real wants 

 of a people who do not know their real wants themselves, 

 to continue to be misled by their representations, and 

 carry on a policy, year after year, of throwing away large 

 sums of money to encourage them to persist in their mis- 

 taken ideas without any material advantages to be derived 

 by doing so ? I would suggest that a series or chain of 

 example farms or agricultural stations of a moderate acre- 

 age be established in each district of the island where 

 the system of cultivation and irrigation may be carried on 

 in a scientific manner. 



In the course of time the success of some one of these 

 stations must come to be observed by the surrounding 

 cultivators who will be induced to adopt the same method 

 of cultivation in preference to their own antediluvian sys- 

 tem as soon as they perceive that the question of money 

 is involved in a practice requiring less than half the quant- 

 ity of grain used at present for seed. A spirit of emul- 

 ation will be awakened] amongst them. Its influence will 

 spread and extend itself until it meets with that of the 

 next district, and so on, until by degrees a universal sys- 

 tem of improved agriculture will take the place of the 

 old, and the dawn of prosperity begiu for the whole 

 Sinhalese race, and not only that, but an industry long 

 neglected, owing to the widespread ignorance regarding its 

 capabilities, will be made to rank iu value alongside of 

 any now being practised by the European community of 

 this island. 



When the Government has thus fulfilled its part, these 

 example agricultural stations may be allowed to revert 

 into the hands of private enterprize. 



As a single instance amongst a multitude of others of 

 the utter ignorance which prevails amongst native cultiv- 

 ators of the physical nature and capabilities of high cul- 

 tivation of the very plant that yields their principal food!, 

 and their want of 'knowledge of propagating it according 

 to the mode that nature itself points out to them, I may 

 just mention this startling fact, which is worth the c.m- 

 sideration of the Government in these depressed times, 

 namely, that, if we take the whole cultivated acreage of 

 Ceylon to be what it is supposed to be, 500,000 acres of 

 paildy, no less a quantity than 1,125/100 bushels are every 

 year ' actually wasted for seed grain, and the enormous 

 sum of Rupees one hundred and twelve thousand Jive hundred 

 uselessly thrown away, owing to their mode of sowing or 

 planting, which does not admit of their taking advantage 

 to the full extent of the valuable economic property poss- 

 essed by paddy, as well as other cereals, of tillering from 

 the root, when the soil is properly worked and brought 

 by scientific means into a proper condition for th<- plant 

 to do so. From paildy treated in this way I have obtained 

 a return of nearly two hundred grains from the single • < .;. 



With regard to the rice plaut, artificial irrigation has a 

 three-fold effect, although, as it will be observed, the first 

 effect is produced by virtue of the actual necessity in the 

 tropics of the second. Firstly, and by virtue of the second 

 effect, it must necessarily supply sufficient moisture to the 



