ii8 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[August i, 1885. 



s. And lastly, that all existing state taxes on slave- 

 property, (rausport, etc. are repealed ou the day this law 

 comes into operation. 



It is alleged that, if this motion should be adopted, a 

 very great portion of the present slave-pupulation will be 

 able to claim their liberty bv reason of the following fact : — 



At the registration of l&ri-73, the slaves imported after 

 1831 were rejireseuted by their owners as older than they 

 really were, for fear they should, as emaucipados, be de- 

 clared free. 



It seems now that thousands of slaves who have not 

 actually attained 60 years, aio according to the old registers 

 officially above that age, aud consequently have a right to 

 claim their freedom. 



Owing to the reasons mentioned, the exact number of 

 slaves in Brazil cannot be ascertained within a few tens of 

 thousands. — Indian Mercury. 



COFFEE IN THE PARCHMENT OR IN THE 

 CHERKY. 



AVe copy from the report of Messrs. Ohabot & Andres 

 at Rotterdam, the following : — 



The imports of coffee in the parchment in Netherland 

 ■were in this season only : — 



About 190,000 bags, against : 



306,621 „ in 1883-84 



188,00o „ „ 1882-S3 



150,000 „ „ lSSl-82 



and show thus a cousiderable decrease. 



This decrease cau be accunted for by various causes : 



1°. by the smaller crop n\ general. 



2°, by the inferior quality of the coffee it.self, 



3°. by the constant expectation of higher prices. 



The crop was decidedly less than had been anticipated, 

 and the leaf blight has, in .several places, acted very in- 

 juriously ou the quality. This year in general there were 

 very few especially good qualities ; the colour was flat 

 aud mostly dull and pale ; the berry not large and 

 shrunken. This we attrib ite to the blight akeady 

 mentionod aud to the difficulty of drjiug through a 

 protracted rainy season. In our account of -January 1884 

 we mentioned that a great part of coffee in the parch- 

 ment was hidd back, to be disposed of later ou by event- 

 ual improvement of the nnirket. Instead if improvement 

 there came a decline, and at every transaction the prices 

 frittered away. In July, September the remnants were 

 disposed of before the beginniug of the campaign, and 

 the results could not but be very disappointi-tg. Indeed, 

 the decline was more than 8 cents per h kilo. Mainly to 

 the impression this caused, and to the existing low prices 

 not giving occasion to expeditious deliveries, it must bo 

 attributed that in this campaign more coft'ee had been 

 peeled in Java. The crop was gathered tiuisly, but on 

 account of the rains the drj'ing did not proceed exped- 

 itiously, aud as after the gathering the plauters had hands 

 unemployed, he resolved to proceed at once to peeling 

 and sorting. We see that crops small in quantity and 

 inferior in quality at low prices, which hardly remu- 

 nerate the planter for costs of production, counteract 

 the treatment in Netherland ; as, under these circum- 

 stances, it is not advisable to make expenses that would 

 on an average render the product 3^ ceut per h kilo, 

 dearer. Having con.sidered what were the causes of 

 the smaller supplies of coffee in the parchment this 

 year, we believe we may also state that, in general, 

 with very special expectations, the results have been in 

 favour of treatment in Netherland. 



In July 1882 we wrote : — 



" To resume, we think wo have hereby adduced the 

 reasons on which we believe that for all superior "W. I. 

 crops, and we repeat, especially for coarser coffees, the 

 peeUng in Netherland will find more and iriore encourage- 

 ment, because it will prove the most profitable, while for 

 small-berried medium coloured coffee the result will always 

 remain doubtful, and will be much more subject to all 

 possible vicissitudes of the market, whether favour.ible 

 or unfavourable. "We can now, after later experience, 

 perfectly confirm this. 



One example will suffice : 



At the Kotterdam market the following parcels of one and 

 the same crop aud from one aud the same plantations sold. 



peeled in India. 

 8 October 1884 



5 November ,, 

 14 „ 



25 „ 



6 December ,, 896 bags price tmkuown tax. 39 cts. 



16 



19 January 1885 256 ,, ... ... ... 35 „ 



19 „ ., . 692 „ 331 „ 



These prices require no comment. 



To the question whether coffee iu parchment can be 

 stored here for some length of time \iithout detriment 

 to the quality, the trials made lead to the following 

 answer : " ^^'ell dried parcels after 6 month's and longer 

 warehousing, showed no diminution of colour of any con- 

 sequence whatever, while coffee less well dried could be 

 observed to grow gradually paler from monih to month, 

 t'offees from different plantations furnished in this respect 

 different results." *' Whether a ]>arcel, brought over here 

 in the parchment is dried in such a manner that it will 

 not suffer by lying in store, cau be detei mined with sufEc- 

 eut certainty." Yet it is decidedly injmrious to the 

 quality for the coffee to lie in the parchment for any- 

 length of time in Java before being expedited. We could 

 observe this by ocmparing various lots. — Indiiin Mercury 



APPLICATION OF ELECTPJCTY TO THE 



PLOUGHING OF RICE AND SUGARCANE 



FIELDS IN JAVA. 



The firm Siemens & Halske, Berlin, have for severa 

 ye.irs been making a series of experiments with an Electric 

 Plough invented by them, and made accurate observations 

 concerning the labour, traction-power and speed, at 

 which lUtferent species of soils could be Uio.st profitably 

 ploughed, and compared these results with the labour ob- 

 tuined in Java with buffaloes. 



The results of these tria!s, which were all made on a 

 large scale and with great care, are very favourable, aud 

 prove not only the practical feasability, but also the 

 advantage that may be derived from introducing Electric 

 Ploughs in Java. 



The plough which Dr. Siemens has had constructed for 

 tliis ptu'pose, is a so-called doiibhov Inila itce-plonyJi , consisting 

 of two equal halves, that can swivel ou the axle of the 

 wheels like a hinge. By this ariaugemeut it is unnecessary 

 to turn the plough, and you can plough forwards or 

 backwards, by letting down either the back or the front half_ 



The ploughs in Java have one plough-share 26 cM. broad, 

 and go 13 cM. deep; for au electric plough, however, 3 

 plough-shares of the same breadth might be used and the 

 ploughing would be as deep, and according to the trials 

 made 1 Hectare of land might be ploughed in 7 hours ;ind 

 6 minutes. 



For the same work, the Javanese yokes two buffaloes 

 to his plough, and with a working time of si.-: hours per day, 

 he would require 26 hours. 



Therefore the same labour is done by the Electric 

 Plough ■— = 3'66 times quicker than by the yoke of 

 buffaloes. Besides this the buffaloes work only 6 hours per 

 day, wlule the Electric Plough cau be made to work with 

 advantage during 10 hours per day. If we take this into con- 

 .sideratiou the difference becomes much greater, for the Elec- 



trict Plough does in y^ =- 0.71 day as much as 3 buffa- 

 loes do in 1^ = 4.33 days, or ^y^ = 6 times as much. 



The driving power serving as standard for these experi- 

 ments, wasSH. P. In actual practice, however, by making 



