o54 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[JANUARY I, 1885. 



Acken.— The Batavia Dcnjblad of the 25th November 

 states that M. Brau de St. Pol Lias, the wellknown enter- 

 prizing colonist, is expected iu Java in April next, along 

 with several associates, to apply for the sanction of the 

 ■N. I. Government to a planting contract entered into 

 by him and M. EniDgton de la Croix in 1881 with the 

 chief and headman of Lohoog in Acheen, where they 

 intended at the time to open out a plantation, but were 

 prevented by hostilities breaking out. 



Freight on Tea. — We learn with some satisfaction 

 that the Oudh and Kohilkhaud Railway Company have, 

 with a full appreciation of their owu interests, lately 

 reduced the freight for Indian teas over their line. 

 This reduction, though somewhat tardily conceded, 

 is none the less valuable. Hitherto the rates in force 

 have been all in favour of the route from Saharun- 

 pur to Karachi, but, the new tariff on the 0. and B. 

 Railway will now permit the planters of Kumou and 

 Dehra Dun to export their tea from Calcutta upon 

 as reasonable terms as from Karachi, The tea interest 

 in tlwse Piovincej has lately been a good deal handi- 

 capped in competing with the other tea-exporting dis- 

 tricts of India, and the reduction of freight now 

 granted will doubtless be widely appreciated. — Pioneer. 



Sorghum Sugar-making Apparatus. — Mr. 0. Benson, 

 M.R.A.C., Agricultural Reporter to the Government of Madras, 

 recently submitted to the Director of Revenue Settlement 

 and Agriculture, a copy of a letter received from the Bly- 

 myer Manufacturing Company, regarding their mills, &c, 

 and calculated that " the cost of the set in New York would 

 be about S146=£29-l-0, say R510." He added:— "If by 

 the importation of such a set of machinery we can settle 

 the question, whether Sorghum sugar cau be profitably 

 made in Southern India, the expenditure would not be large. 

 The evaporator also would doubtless be very valuable in 

 producing higher grades of sugar than the ordinary pans 

 used iu this Presidency." Mr. Wilson submitted the letter 

 to Government, through the Board of Revenue, with the 

 recommendation that a set of the apparatus be procured. 

 The approximate cost in New York, he repeated, would 

 be R510. The Government sanctioned the expenditure, 

 observing that " the equivalent of £29-1-0 at the usual rate 

 of exchange is not R510, but approximately R34S. The 

 cost of carriage to Madras has, it is presumed, been taken 

 into account." — Madras Mail. 



Cinchona Barking. — Says the correspondent to a Madras 

 paper : — I referred last week to the discussion on cinchona 

 barking, which is especially interesting to ns all now. I 

 think experience and the close obvservatiou of results is 

 fast condemning the old system of shaving the trees. It 

 is proved that the trees are severely injured, eventually, 

 by the process which resembles slow starvation; that the 

 bark, after its first renewal, rapidly deteriorates both in 

 quantity and quality ; and that the original plan of cop- 

 picing on an improved system will be found the most 

 remunerative as well as an absolute necessary method of 

 working iu the future. The improvement is in allowing 

 three or four stems or shoots to grow from each root, to 

 coppice one or more of this at a regular interval, so that 

 some portion of an estate may always be available for 

 harvesting without the ultimate destruction of the trees. 

 Already I hea; of the evil results or the new plan of plant- 

 ing ledger clearings without the necessary support of " ex- 

 pense" playing — young coffee. An eminent proprietor 

 actually wrote the other day to his manager complaining 

 that " his three-year old ledger clearings were not yet 

 giving any returns," and wanting "to know, you know," why 

 he had to pay for their cultivation, and get none of his 

 money back ! ! A curious fact, yet too impressed, I fancy, 

 on many a sanguine but ignorant " absent proprietor." 



Cultivation of Patna Land. — The South of India Ob- 

 server notices the discussion about the as-yet-untouehed- 

 patnas as follows : — If grass land has a good retentive sub- 

 soil there is uo reason why tea, coffee, and cinchona should 

 not thrive on it as well as on forest land, provided that 

 proper manure is used, and the climate suitable. We have 

 always been of opinion that in Ceylon the first principles 

 of arboriculture were but little understood, though it must 

 be admitted that the planters are a very enterprizing set 

 of men. We may remark that the first coffee plantations 



in Wynaad were formed in grass land, and that land con- 

 sisting of nothing hut yellow, white, and pink, decomposed 

 felspar, the result could easily have been foreseen. The 

 small amouut of available potash was soon exhausted, and 

 the roots unable to extract the large amount locked up 

 in the silicates, could obtain no food, so the plantations 

 died out. Whereas the Kew estate on the same soil, and 

 formed about the same time 1840, was giving excellent 

 crops in 1862, when we saw it, because all the manure 

 from the bazaar close by, and from the Club stables, was 

 freely applied to it. AVe need scarcely mention many tea 

 plantations on these hills formed on grass land, which have 

 given fair returns and would give better, if potash were 

 more freely applied. 



St. Vincent, W. I :— GloomyOutlook. — The leading pro- 

 prietors of estates in St. Vincent have taken steps to reduce 

 both the area of cultivation and the amount of their pay 

 lists. As a rule, the overseers will be discharged, and the 

 managers will be called on to accept an overseer's salary 

 or leave. No canes will be planted for crop 1866, and the 

 present acreage will be tilled and kept clean by jobbers 

 and not by estate gangs. The coolie gangs must, of course, 

 be kept up, but there are now very few indentured coolies 

 on estates in St. Vincent. There is now no scarcity of 

 labour; instead of that, many labourers will find difficulty 

 in getting work on estates even at starvation wages. This, 

 of course, will cause emigration to other places, such as 

 Panama or the mines of Venezuela. Molasses are now 

 almost worthless as a marketable commodity ; and the only 

 profitable way to utilize them is by giving them to the 

 stock or turning them into rum. In two or three years 

 (unless the price of sugar should rise to be remunerative) 

 the cultivation of the sugar cane will be abandoned ; and 

 what in the meantime will be the state of the public 

 finances ? Where will the money come from to pay taxes 

 to maintain the institutions of the colony? The outlook 

 at present is very gloomy. Even at Guadelope, where large 

 crops have been reaped, and where the finest nsiixes in the 

 West Indies exist, with the latest improvements that skill 

 or capital could devise, ruin is staring planters in the face, 

 unless they can get a bounty from the French Government 

 to enable them to compete with the Continental beet pro- 

 ducers. — St. Vincent Witness. 



Eucalvpts at Home and Abroad. — This was the subject 

 of a lecture delivered in the committee-room at the Inter- 

 national Forestry Exhibition just before its close by Dr. 

 Howitz, of Copenhagen. Dr. Cleghoru presided, and briefly 

 introduced the lecturer, who, after a few introductory re- 

 marks, said that his speciality in the science of forestry 

 had been the cultivation of new forests. As he had a few 

 years ago the opportunity of studying the eucalypts or gum 

 trees of Australia, and had been subsequently engaged to 

 report upon the introduction of those trees as forest trees 

 into Algiers, Dr. Cleghoru had requested him to give a 

 short lecture on the subject. The jarrawood (Eucalypt 

 marginata), would supersede all others for piles for wharves 

 and a certain class of shipbuilding ; while the red gum 

 (Eucalypt rosirata) and its congeners wood be placed fore- 

 most as railway sleepers, wood pavements, &c. Where hard- 

 ness, durability, and resistance to the attacks of insects 

 were required, these trees were preferable, and it was certain 

 that they had a great future before them. He believed 

 that the large quantities of our native trees, which had 

 hitherto been used for such purposes, would be forced into 

 other branches of industry if the use of the eucalypts 

 became general. The cultivation of gum trees in South 

 Africa and the countries rouud the Mediterranean Sea would 

 bring the products within reasouable distance of the markets 

 of this country, and lessen their cost considerably. Dr. 

 Howitz explained at some length the hygienic properties 

 of the eucalypts, and mentioned, as showing the astonish- 

 ing influence they possessed, that the village of Ain Mokra, 

 near Bona, Algeria, owed its fame as a healthy spot to 

 the presence of the eucalypts. — Colonies aad India. 



Quinine. — Itis announced that O.F. Boehringerfc Soehuo, 

 the quinine manufacturers, of Mannheim, Germany, have 

 established a branch house iu this city, with Mr. L. En:;el- 

 horn, a brother of one of the members of the firm, iu charge. 

 Mr. A. Boehringer has been here for some time to establish 

 the branch house which has become necessary by reason of 

 the increasing demand for the products of this house, which 

 have a high reputation here. — iV. York Independent Journal, 



