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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



[March 2, 1885, 



success and prizes were awarded for the following products : 

 —Sugarcane, coffee, cacao, rum, pimento, limes, lemons, 

 fresh butter, cheese, cayenne pepper, vinegar, lime juice, 

 dry ginger, honey, wax, preserved fish, beef salted, starch, 

 essential oil and other oils, tobacco, cigars, grapes, pickles, 

 starches from banana plantation, pumpkin, yam, ipomcea, 

 negro yam, Indian yam, breadfruit, white yam, cocos, &c. 



The fibre industry was well represented, the steam engine 

 working the machinery and fibre being manufactured on 

 the spot. 



I mention the above as a hint to your Government 

 Agents in upcountry stations to promote new industries 

 among the Sinhalese and Tamil population of Ceylon. 



Jamaica, as all the world knows, is a great stock-breed- 

 ing country, and pun-keeping pays better than sugar or 

 coffee cultivation. Prizes were given for horsekind, cattle, 

 sheeps and pigs, mules, turkeys, fowls, pigeons, ducks, 

 and geese. Prizes as high as £10 were given for 1st class 

 cattle down to £3 for fat steers and heifers. I was sur- 

 prized to see such a speudid collection of beasts, and 

 they were shown off to great advantage at Cumberland 

 Pen near Spanish Town and Gregory Park.* 



H. COTTAM. 



THE SONG OF THE RUBBER TREE. 



I. 

 The Golden Age and the Age of Bronze 



May be left to the visions plastic 

 Of art and sour, but a free response. 



With a buoyancy gymnastic. 

 Is at present caught from the world of thought 



For the Age of the Gum-Elastic. 



T'is the song of the hour that grows in power, 



With a rhythmic beat quite pleasant, 

 As of myriad things, shaking out new wiiiss 



For the pleasure of lord and peasant— 

 The song of the age, the pean free 

 That is wafted up from the Rubber Tree, 



The song of the moving Present! 



From the wooded wastes of the Amazon, 



From valleys old and Asian, 

 From the hot Nepaul, and the straits that crawl 



Among islanded groups Malaysian, 

 The strange air floats from untutored throats, 



Till at last, in a diapason, 

 Harmonious made by the roar of Trade 



And the hum of the fabricator, 

 World-wide it flows, without let or close, 



And none with a meaning greater,— 

 The Authein free of avails to be, 

 The rare new song of the Rubber Tree, 



Klest gift of the good Creator ! 

 III. 

 A world of wheels, and of belts and reels. 



Proclaiming their staunch reliance, 

 And a maze of parts in the realm of arts, 



With the gum in each new appliance, 

 Springs, plates and bars, hubs, spokes aDd cars, 



All bent iu an odd alliance, 

 The refrain take up that, with drinking-eup 



Upraised in a Godspeed o'er us. 

 May be joined by all, both great and small, 



Such as never was sung before us. 

 All claiming free in the fresh new glee, 

 The thought-brimmed song of the Rubber Tree, 



As rich as the anvil chorus ! 

 IV. 

 Whether vulcaui/.od or elastic, prized 



Is the boon of the caoutchouc dearly, 

 For tools or toys, and for men and boys. 



Its use is increasing yearly, 

 While day by day doth it feel its way 



Into workmanship more clearly. 

 Then hurrah for the juice, so put to use 



As to stand in our stead unswerving! 

 And lend to the song the chorus strong 



That will add to its zest deserving— 

 The song of today and of days to be, 

 The song so free of the Rubber Tree, 



The life of our Era nerving ! 



Nathan D. Urner. 

 —Indiarubber and Guttapercha Journal. 



'Jamaica is 17° from the equator; that is one differ- 

 ence in its favour as against Ceylon, but the great favour, 

 ing agent is probably the rich volcanic soil, able to support 

 good grasses in the western colony.— En. 



Richest Man in the World. — The Times-Democrat of 

 New Orleans has the following statement: — "Sebastiao 

 Moreno, is owner of no fewer than seven diamond mines 

 and thirty-five coffee and cochineal estates in Santa Bar- 

 bara, in Brazil, and undoubtedly he is the richest man iu 

 the world. His fortune is estimated at 3,200,000 contos 

 of reis," that is to say £320,000,000. This seems inconceiv- 

 able, and if true knocks the Rothschilds into a cocked 

 hat. I will not inquire as to the authority of your North 

 American contemporary for this statement, which I find re- 

 produced in the columns of the Folha JVova of Riode Janeiro. 

 AVhere does Don Sebastiao Moreno keep his banking 

 accounts ? — South American- Journal. 



Fibres. — Inventors have now an opportunity of gaining 

 a grand prize. The Mexican Government, I understand, 

 have just offered a prize of £4,000 to the inventor of 

 a machine which shall successfully extract the fibre from 

 heuquin, under the following conditions : It must be 

 automatic, and not require skilled and experienced work- 

 men to manage it ; it must be entirely free from danger 

 to the operators; it must require less motive force 

 than the machine now in use with relation to its produc- 

 ing power ; it must increase the production or extraction 

 of the fibre within a given time, diminishing its loss 

 compared with the various machines in use. The reward 

 is to remain open for three years, and is without pre- 

 judice to the right of proprietorship and of patent. — 

 South American Journal. 



Cinchona as a New Product in Mauritius. — At 

 a meeting of the Council of Government of the Sugar 

 sale, the Hon. H. Adam rose to move " that a Special 

 Committee be appointed to enquire into and report 

 upon the best means of encouraging the cultivation 

 of cinchona trees in this island." The hon. member 

 had noticed with pleasure that at recent meetings, 

 similar motions had been announced with respect to 

 the cultivation of silk, tea ami tobacco It was 

 acknowledged that the colony was passing t< v ugh a 

 cris : s, and that much consequent destitution had been 

 the result. Some parts of the islund had been aban- 

 doned for sugarcane planting, and nothing had been 

 planted to replace the sugarcane. He thought that a 

 great part of this land might be turned to account, 

 and that the production of cinchona would be of 

 great benefit to the colony. The gardens at Curt pipe 

 had been created almost expressly for that purpose, 

 but the supply would scarcely suffice for the popula- 

 tion. He thought his motion would be likely to give 

 good results generally, if it could be extended to the 

 cultivation of tea, silk, tobacco and coffee. The Hon. 

 the Colonial Secretary seconded the motion which was 

 unanimously adopted. — Mercantile Record and Com- 

 mercial Gazette. 



Trinidad. — While on a visit to Sir Joseph Needham at 

 Trinidad, an excellent opportunity was afforded to see the 

 working of a large plantation in which the orange, lemon, 

 shaddock, pomelo, and every description of citron were cult- 

 ivated, and iu a smaller degree coffee aud sugar. The beau- 

 ties of Sir Joseph's garden, and the kindness and hospit- 

 ality of the reception, says Lady Brassey, it would be vain 

 to attempt to describe. He had prepared every possible 

 delicacy for every variety of taste. There were tea, coffee, 

 cocoa, wine, cold meats, fruits of every kind, besides orange- 

 ade, lemonade, and lime-juice, which the old negro servants 

 hoepitably pressed upon us. Those who have never tasted 

 orangeade or lemonade as made in the West Indies can have 

 little idea what such compounds in their perfection are like. 

 They would be appreciated anywhere, but between the 

 beat of the day and the thirst engendered by our long drive 

 they appeared to us simply ambrosial. At the Government 

 House, Trinidad, Lady Brassey aud party appear to have 

 had a very hearty reception. Nobody [says the authoress] 

 could have received us more kindly than Sir Sandford Free- 

 ling and his daughter Miss Freeliug. . . . We had a 

 pleasant dinner in a charmingly airy room— far cooler than 

 many a London dining room in summer. The drawing 

 room was equally spacious and pleasant. Except at the 

 Straits Settlements (Singapore), I have never seen a finer 

 Government House, nor one so well arranged in every 

 respect. — Lady Brassey's new book. 



