•JO 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[July i, 1885, 



Iiijady I'ernian lii|iior whicli causud Sir Philip Francis anil 

 "VVarrcn IlaftiiigH tobave tlii;ir memorable meeting on tbc 

 Muiilan of (Jaleiitta. IJut by and by, wben easier com- 

 iMUiiiiiit.ioo with Iviirojic Ijrougbt European wines into the 

 Jinljjiii inurketH, the Nabobs tooi< to Snoyd's claret in 

 prelcDjocc \/} Shiraz and very much it would appear, to 

 the irnprovunieut of their morals and their tempers. ^\'hat 

 has become of the wine Shiraz now, it would be hard to 

 way. ]'(;rli;ipH it goes, with wines from all countries, to 

 Oeltc, tln:re t/i be manufactured into something that is tbe 

 lashifjualite drink of tbe moment. 



In India they (,'row tbe vine chiedy on trellises. I have 

 Keen a cbarmiiif,' effect produced by trellised vines extending 

 over an nilcy of a hundred yards or so. Underneath the 

 canopy of vine leaves and pui-ple, red, and white cluhters 

 of grapes, were IVrns, tastefully arranged in ornamental pots 

 anil baskets. JCvery fern, from the tree fern to tbe maiden's 

 hair, was there in profusion, and tbe bajjpy combination of 

 shade iiiid chci|Uereil light from above was enchanting. But 

 although wine i.i luaile from trellised vines in Italy, it is not 

 the proper way of growing the vine for wine. iJowever, the 

 little stunted bushes with which (Jontinental travel has 

 made every one familiar are absent in India, though one 

 need not know as much about wine, as (Jyrus UeJding or 

 \'i/.eti:lly to see that certain soils in India must be ad- 

 mirably adai)leil for tho vine, and perhaps for wine. The 

 Jtlabarajah ofOasbmere has thought so well of tbe capacities 

 of is dominions in tins direction that he has imported vines 

 and vine-ilriiHsiTs from France-, and projjoses entering the 

 market as a rival of \'euve C'iicipiot and Tol lUigir ; but the 

 Maharajah's experiments are being conducted out of ]iriti.sh 

 territory, so have not tbe same interest as it conducted in our 

 own. There is plenty of soil (and proper climate) however 

 in Northern India that could grow the gr.ape just iis well as 

 (lashnieru, and it seems a pity that IJritish India, which now 

 produces corn and oil in the greatest abundance, .shonld 

 not bavo the conventional third type of a land's fertility 

 added to the other two. There is a diamondiferous district 

 in Soulhorii Inilia, Ijordcring the Kistna and Toonga Woiin- 

 dra districts that might piTliaps produce a good wine. 

 There are diainond fields there, which were once very pro- 

 <luetive, and they are now being reopened. But the grapes 

 of Ouilduiiah, and those parts, are better than the diamonds 

 — at least tlian any I have seen. And if there were i.o 

 ilillicully about irrigation— for Ouddapah is a i'rigbtfuUy 

 liot place — vines — ami wine— should succeed there with care. 

 But it is easy, of course, to get any climate almost one 

 pleases in India by simply ascending tbe plateaus and 

 mountains that arc to be found everywhere ; thus tbe My- 

 sore iilnteau :i,IK10 IVot high, would seem in parts to bo 

 favourable to the cultivation of the vine. The natives of 

 tbe present day, however soeni to liavo lost all knowledge 

 of the vine. Tbey scarcely know what tho plant is, they 

 Hew It so seldom. And yift there was a time when wine was 

 sold ill tho bazaars, and when, no doubt, large tracts of 

 country were planted thiekly with the vine. The value 

 und iiwportanco of a local wine, whether it was made in 

 the Morlh, the South, the liast, or West of tho Peninsula 

 of India, may be guessed by the enormous figures which 

 represent the importation of wines and spirits to India. It 

 is a curious fact, borne out by those iiguros, that while 

 Kuropeans in India are beceniiug nioro temperate, natives 

 of India are growing more and more bibulous. Europeans 

 now mostly conteul themselves with a little whisky— ad- 

 ulterated wiiU"* being more poisonous in India than el.se- 

 where ; hut to the native tippler all is good liquor that 

 ia bottled, so much so that kerosene oil has been iiuaffod 

 Milder that delution. And the imports through tbe lionibay 

 Ihislem House represent a total of gin, and of other cheap 

 spirits, that is awful enough to make Sir \V. Lawson's 

 hair stand on end. tiin seems the peculiar vanity of the 

 lower class of Hindu : his superiors get drunk on cherry 

 brandy, junt wine and champague— perhaps all mixed to- 

 gether, lint it is a noteworthy circumstance that while 

 this import of fiireign spirit is steadily tlowing into Hin- 

 dostan, there is another alcoholic current tlowing out of it. 

 C)f late years the exportation oi arrack has been very 

 consuloralilc, though what becomes of this rice spirits 

 after it leaxes India no one knows. There is no vauxhall 

 now, where rakU-puneli would be in demand, and if there 

 was, sensible people would tiiUo Joe Scdley's e;.aniplo ns u 

 wftiuing, Aud »void tUa " hot coppers " produced >>y it. 



But toddy, or the juice of the palmyra, or the date palm, 

 is unquestiouably the national drink, the wine of India at 

 the present day. And in taste it somewhat resembles ball- 

 room gooseberry, miscalled champagne Toddy, neverthe- 

 less is a poisonous drink, and it is an argument in favoiu- 

 of the restoration of the viue that a liquor so demoralizing 

 should be the wine, so to speak ^ of an enormous part of 

 the population of India. Toddy has the curious property 

 of being non-intoxicating, and therefore harmless, before 

 the sun is risen and it has had time to ferment, but toddy 

 io the day time is to be avoided, of which an instance in 

 point. lu my gritbuish, or salad days, I used to drink a 

 tumbler of palm juice in the early morning before it had 

 fermented, and found it acid and refreshing. But one day, 

 about 11 a.m., being fagged and heated in pursuit of ante- 

 lope, I had a hearty pull at a toddy-pot in a village I 

 passed through, and the result is never to be forgotten. 

 My horse went home by himself, and I awoke, at three 

 o'clock, from a sound sleep in the middle of the public 

 road. The stuff is as quick in intoxicating as good cham- 

 pagne, and exposure to the sun intensifies and quickens 

 its effects. The confirmed toddy drinker's appearance is 

 a caution. His eyes are the colour of rubies, or of coals 

 of fire, in his head, reminding one of those lines in Bon 

 Gaultier, slightly transposed ; — 



What is this, his eyes are pinky, 

 Was ithis /orfc'i/ ? oh, no, no. 

 Bless your heart, it was his curry, 

 Ourry always makes them so. 



And I have heard that excessive indulgence in toddy pro- 

 duces a number of bodily ailments bi'sides those common 

 to tbe abuse of any intoxicating liquor. 



Unquestionably the vine is the least hurtful of all the 

 plants that give an intoxicant to the human race, and I 

 am sanguine enough to think that if tbe vino and vineyards 

 were revived in India we should have a remedy for tho 

 drunkenness that threatens the Indian population of the 

 future. The destruction of the vineyards of India I at- 

 tribute to the Maliomedan conquerors of the country; men 

 who would have rooted up the vine wherever found as an 

 unmitigated evil. But even the llahomedans with civil- 

 ization and unbelief are becoming free livers, while the 

 educated Hindus notoriously drink like fishes. There is 

 no hope for such a ijeojile if they once take to drink, 

 and wbat'i' — the cheap spirits imported from abroad ! But 

 if India grew — as I make no doubt she could grow — a 

 cheap and pure vin dc pai/s, such as the temperate peoples 

 of wine countries use, the L'50 millions might drink as 

 thev pleased, their drinking could do them little harm. — 

 F. E. W.— Graphic. 



PRACTICAL RESULTS OF RAMII-: (OR EHEA) 



CULTURE. 



By Henky Sankobd Behgman, 



CULTIVATION, DECOUTICATINO, BLEACiriNO AND SPINNING. 



For several years the farmers in the northern part of 

 France have raised ramie as a better paying culture than 

 that of wine. Three ctops can be raised on a hectare 

 equal to two acres, viz., in the middle of the mouths of 

 .Tune, August, and October. One croi) will yield 00,000 

 kilogs. per hectare, or 180,000 kilogs. in all, which can 

 bo sold at 8 francs jier kilog , thus giving a crop valued 

 at 4,800 frs. (?9 per year). The total cost of roots, 

 planting and labor amounts to 1,200 frs. per hectare in 

 the first year; in tbe following years no cost except for 

 labor are to be incurred, as the ramie plant is a ]ier- 

 eiinial plant. Tbe culture of ramie on a large scale is more 

 remunerative, as the cost of labour is thus gradually 

 diminished. The decorticating and baling of the fibres is 

 generally done on tbe spot under a shed ; the stalks bring 

 a price of S frs. per I(iO kilogs. — The difference be- 

 tween raising ramie on a small and large scale is illus- 

 trated tbns: — A .small grower sells his stalks at 8 frs. per 

 100 kilogs., receiving •1,800 frs. per hectare; a large 

 grower, who decorticates the fibre, sells it I fr. per kilog , 

 reieiving 12,000 frs. per hectsire, or at a ditTereuce of, 

 7,'W fi«. per liectoie. A decortioatiug macliius, e^'stem 



