April i, 1885] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST 



793 



having to bo gone over at from 7 to 10 days. In the 

 other, the fields are gone round in the hottest season 

 at from 10 to 15 days, and in the colder weather at 

 from 15 to 22 days ; result in yiold is about the same, 

 always excoptiug " Mariawatte " with ita perfect 

 climate and lay. 



My plucking at an elevation of from o,000 to 5,500 

 feet cost as follows for the three seasons :-— 

 Season— 'Sl-82 5-57 cents per lb. ) Average £ or 3 years 



n '82-83 6-86 ,, 11 f 7-08 cents per lb. tea. 

 '83-81 8-81 ,, „ J * 



The high cost of plucking last season is due to two 

 causes : first, the unprecedented drought caused a 

 stunted ilueh, during what ought to have been 

 our best months ; second, 90 acres of young tea was 

 plucked for the first time, coolies only bringing in 

 their 5 to 8 lb. of leaf from it. 1 think therefore 

 my former estimate of 7 cents is about correct for 

 high-grown teas, to which 1 then referred. 



To revert to driers, there can be no question, I 

 think, that those are to be preferred that do good 

 work without motive power, to those requiring motive 

 power, even should the cost of the former be more. 

 Should the No. 3 Sirocco prove to be the improve- 

 ment on the No. 1 it professes to be, it is in my 

 opinion the drier of the day. 



More anon. — Youre truly, 



O. SPEARMAN ARMSTRONG. 



CHEAP CINCHONA ALKALOIDS. 



Dear Sir, — I am surprized that the statements 

 respecting thi«) which you lately reprinted from the 

 Pioneer, have met with so little notice. It was 

 therein stated that "English manufacturers have been 

 trying the Indian market with a muriate of cinchqnine 

 at K12 the lb." ; also that " the Government now 

 steps in with a preparation of cinchona febrifuge, which 

 it can afford to sell at KG per lb." 



What I would like to know is, if either of these 

 preparations have been yet introduced into Ceylon? 

 and, if not, why not ? Also, what is the nature of the 

 febrifuge manufactured " by Government" ? and how 

 is it made to be saleable at one shilling per ounce ? 



CEYLON PLANTER. 



[If our correspondent will refer to the back volumes 

 of the Tropical Agriculturist, he will find full part- 

 iculars of Mr. Gammie's mode of manufacturing 

 cinchona alkaloids and of their cost. They are of 

 course not so effective as quinine, and often produce 

 nausea ; but they are well worth trying. The great 

 thing is to get a prophylactic into use among the 

 millions of India and by-and-bye of China. — Ed.] 



The "T. A." — A planter writes :—" What a valu- 

 able amount of good sound information is within the 

 covers of the T. A. I have just heard from a leading 

 member of the Botanic Society of Edinburgh (of which 

 I am a life fellow) that he reads it with great interest. 

 I am sure its usefulness is still more appreciated in 

 planting colonies." 



Bee-keepini: in India.— Our American visitor 

 of a few years ago, Mr. Frank Benton, as may be 

 seen from an advertisement elsewhere, is still inter- 

 ested in Bee-keeping aDd the supply of the finest 

 availab'e "Queens" to would-be apiarians both in 

 Ame.ica and the Far East. Mr. Benton stems to 

 ha e given up his post in the Michigan Agricultural 

 College, to reside permanently in Munich, from which 

 city he makes annual visits to South Austria and 

 Cyprus. Mr. Benton sends us a copy of an interest- 

 ing article on Bee-Culture iu India which will find 

 a place in the Tropical Agriculturist. 



100 



Mb, David Kf.id, late of C"ylon, in a recent locturo 

 delivered in Scotland says : — The bright part of the 

 future iu Ceylon lies in tea. It has been found that 

 the soil and climate of Ceylon are admirably suited for 

 ita growth. One estate planled on the very piece of 

 ground on which the first coffee estate was planted by 

 Mr. George Bird in 1S24, and already alluded to, was 

 plantod in 1879, with tea, and has this year given a 

 crop of 1,000 lb. of tea per acre, an amount never yet 

 surpassed or obtained in the best tea gardens of India. 

 Although the amount of tea sent to this country is as 

 yet small in quantity, viz., under 3 million lb., yet this 

 industry, having regard to its future, is even now the 

 most important to the island, for it has now been 

 proved beyond doubt that there arc hundreds of 

 thousands of acres of laud capable of growing too 

 liuest tea in quantities over 400 lb. an acre. The 

 knowledge of this is oven now sustaining Ceylo.i 

 credit and preventing a great deal of misery and 

 ruin, of which there has of late been more than enough. 

 ******* 



Although it will be long before lea equalling in value 

 the biggest crop of coffee that Ceylon ever produced 

 will be exported from the island, I anticipate that the 

 day is not far distant when the general trade of the 

 iBlaud will be as much stimulated by tea as it ever 

 was by coffee. Tea reqnires so much manipulation 



that .'i l" greater number of u per acre ia required 



for carry uj* it oil, and the extent of [and available for 

 tea is many fold greater than the land that was 

 suitable for colfee. The number of coolies that must 

 be brought from India will be doubled and trebled, 

 wages will rise, more food must be grown or imported 

 — in short, there will be good times again in Ceylon 

 under the reign of King tea nice King coffee deposed. 

 The pioneers of tea have one advantage over the 

 pioneers of colfee iu the excellent roads now to be found 

 all through the island— roads that are the admiration 

 of all visitors, and which, for smoothness of surface 

 and neat appearance, put our Scotch roads to shame. 

 — Indian Planters' Gazette. 



Tub Proposed Separation op Northern from 

 Southern Queensland. — A memorial was addressed 

 to Lord Derby last January by certain investors 

 of a large amount of capital iu the north-eastern sea- 

 borde of Queensland, expressing sympathy with the 

 present movement for the separation of the colony and 

 giving some of the prii cipal reasons which made such 

 a separation desirable. The memorial states that 



Queensland has an area of 669,000 square miles, which 

 it is proposed to divide by a hue runniug West from 

 Oape Palmerston on the east coast, in latitude 21" 30', 

 to the eastern boundary of South Australia separating the 

 waters flowing north into the Burdekin and Gulf of Car- 

 pentaria from the waters flowing south. The tropical por- 

 tion to the north of this dividing line has an area of 

 249,000 square miles (more than double the area of the 

 United Kingdom), contains 60,000 inhabitants, aud produces 

 an annual rovenue of £000,000. When Queensland was first 

 constituted in 1859, her population was 25,000, aud her 

 revenue £178,589. The proposed new Colony has then fore 

 double the population, and treble the income, of Queens- 

 land at the time of her, separation from New South Wales. 

 The reasons for separation are then given, being 

 summed up at the end of the memorial as follows : — 



On the grounds therefore 



(1) Of the enormous territory and want of adequate 

 supervision ; 



(2) Of the unjust dealing with loans and revenue ; 



(3) Of the great difference of policy as regards coloured 

 labour ; and 



(4; Of the precedent afforded by the separation 

 of Queensland from New South AVales in 1859. We 

 sincerely trust that Her Majesty's Government will see 

 their way to dividing tropical from temperate Queensland, 

 equitably apportioning the public debt, and giving rolief 

 to the inhabitants of and those interested in Northora 

 Queensland 



