August i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



133 



ill liujjo oil tlui I-oiiiloii wharves. With reganl to its coni- 

 I>(j»itiuii, aimlyBen have licen inud(.' by MesBrf. ISerimrd 

 Uyer, John Hughus, (J. Uixoii, ami thu lati; ami prcKC-iit 

 Dr». Voelcker. Glauciiig over the re«ultH of them; iiiialy- 

 «uM, it in (>eeii that the total nitrogen equal to ammonia 

 varies hetwuen 'J^S per cent. (Mr. .lohu Jliighes) ami 

 ll'SU per cent. fl>r. Voelcker unci iJr. John Voc'lcker^, 

 while the perc<'ntuge of tribaHic jiliOBphate of lime re- 

 presented by the phoHphoric acid present ranges birtwcen 

 14-4.'J and 10'74. Judiug from these figures it is likely 

 that bats' guauo will become no unworthy rival of 

 I'eruvian guano. 



Kielil experiments made during the last year or two 

 in Knglaud have yielded highly satisfactory n^sults, and 

 it is proposed to rrpeut these on a large scale during 

 the coming sumintT. 'j'lio Texas Guano Company, by 

 whom the deposits are now to be worked, hiid that 

 there is a local demand for between 2,000 and a,OIJI) 

 tons per annum, but it is to be hoped that the output 

 will be sufliciently large to meet the demand which 

 should arine in this country jiroviding the fertiliser con- 

 tinues equal in (piality to tlie shipments that have already 

 been made to Kngland, and there is no apparent reasim 

 why this should not be so. A fair estimate places the total 

 quantity t,i bats' guano in the Texas caves of 1,'valiio 

 and (iljolo at not less than half a million tons. The (;x- 

 l)erience of any famers who have madu use of this new 

 fertiliser — for it is practically new — would be of interest. 

 — JIurk Lane ICxpress. 



CUINAG11AS3 AND "kola I'ASTK 

 155, Fenchuroh Street, London, K. C, 5th June 1885. 



Deau Sir, — You will no doubt hear aibout a now 

 process of treating China-grass. The fact is that it 

 18 now euggestea to revert to the plan in use in 

 China, namely, of stripping with the uail the skin 

 of the rhca fctem, then drying it and sending it over 

 to this country here to be treated by an alkali to 

 dissolve the gum. The beauty ol the Smith process 

 was that the product should bo treated directly it 

 was cut and while in its soft gummy state on the 

 plant. These straps— as they are called— come at the 

 present time surrounding the cotton and fibre bales 

 and are largely sold in the Liverpool market to paper 

 manufacturers to improve their paper. They have 

 aleo been sold to the libre producors and prepared 

 for spinning. This shows that the " new process," as 

 it is called, has really no value because it is an old 

 process, and every detail in the operation is now 

 practised commercially. 



I am Bonding by this mail a sample of the kola 

 paste to Dr. Trimen. If examined under the micro- 

 scope it will be found to correspond exactly with 

 chocolate paste and has much the same flavour of 

 the raw product as sold preparatory to its beinj; Uavoured 

 and sold as chocolate. — I am, yours obidiently. 



THOS. CUFJSTY. 



TEA IN JAPAN AND CEYLON. " 



Dear Sih,— Your extracts from Mr. Gribble's botjk 

 about tea in Japan are very inteiesting, but what 

 strikes me as the most wonderful thing about it is 



the enormous yield th>-y get at thiee years ! viz. 



376 lb. of green leaf from 100 tsubo— iOO tsubo are 

 stated to be equal to .3,000 Kjuare feet, which is 

 about a twelfth of an acre. So they get nver eleven 

 hundred pounds o/' mudi; lea per acre <il three years 

 old ! X presume this 'n due to their manner of 

 planting, anrl I believe the yield to be possible 

 considering that they have circles of about 30 plants at 

 distances of five feet apart. It would be worth while 

 trying an acre on the same system. I am of opinion 

 that Mr. Giibblemeiint 3i lb. of leaves as ho has written 

 it, and not 3i lb. of made lea it its equivalent in 

 leaves as you take it to be. Look at the cost of 

 plucking given ! It is over a halfpenny per lb. of 

 green leaf, and this for the year in which as he states 

 wages were 23 jjer cent below the rates ruling in the 

 previous year. Now I shall suppose labour to be very 



cheap in Japan, and I wouhl not consider it very 

 ohcap if gills get more than 2d to .Id per day. 

 The wages for girls is stated to lie \T> sen per day 

 and men gut .50 sen per day. As the men get nearly 

 .'i.j times the wages i f the pluckers, I would fcup[iiiso 

 that the pluckers are quite small children. I would 

 think that tea pl.-mted uH the .lapaiiese plant it would 

 be more dilliuult to pluck carefully than tea planted 

 on the Indian system. J(, 



[Wages (of adults, we suppose) being, according to 

 Mr. Jjowcn, about 25 cents of a rupee per dicm, prob- 

 ably tliis correspondent is correct about the pluck- 

 ing by young girls and the proportionate wages. 

 15ut what have exjierts to H,ay to the nse of cast- 

 iron pans in the final drying of tea in Japan ? and 

 how is it that the leaf retains its green colour 

 after such intimate contact with iron ? — Ko.] 



CEAhA KUIiBEIl TKEES^ ' 



Mataiig, Sarawak, VMh Juno 1885. 



Dear tiin, — 1 have a tew hundnd Cear.-l rubber 

 trees about three years old, and am dtsirous to pro- 

 cure a sniiipleof rubbirfrom them. I therefore write, 

 asking if you v/ill kindly tell im^ the bftst iiienns of 

 doing so.— Voius truly, LOYALTY i'EAKE, 



[Our correspondent should ajiply to Messrs. John 

 Walker & Co. for one of Mr. H. S. I'laser's rubber 

 collectors. — Eu,] 



JUNGLE AND PLANTATION TEA SEED 

 HYBKIDI/ING ? 

 blackwater, (Jalboda, Ist July J885. 



Djcar .Sill, — Under separate cover I send some leaves. 

 The dark bronze ones I know to be tea, but the 

 pale red ones are so much li<e the jungle tea that 

 lam in doubt, though they came off a bush at least 

 seven years old, which h.n been pruned and plucked 

 for years. A Urge number of the jungle tea plants 

 were put out by mistake on this estate, the scerl 

 having blown into the ten nursericM, Is it possible for 

 the jungle tea to hybrid'zo with tea? There are so 

 many bushes on this estate lo like the jungle tea, 

 there is no telling the difference. I have never in all 

 my experi'iice seen haves so red, though bronze is quite 

 a coinirion color. — Yours faithfully, C. A. HAY. 



[Kvery person connected with tea in Oylon must 

 be aware that when nurseiies are formed plants of 

 what is known as " wild tea "spring up iiniillaneousiy 

 with the true tea seedlings. It is now nearly ten years 

 since we diew the attention of the late Dr. 'Iliwaites 

 of the Peradeniya Koyal J'.otinic Gardens to this fact. 

 From him we then learned, that, except similarity of 

 leaf, the so-called "wild tea,'' a very common jungle 

 tree, has noafiiniiy to true tea. The ideaof hybndi/.ing 

 may therefore, we suppo-^e, be dismissed, even if both 

 trees have been in bloskom in close contiguity. There 

 remains tho ulea which the late Mr. Howard pro- 

 pounded in regaid to cinchona, the insensible inllueuce, 

 short of hybridizing, produced by plants on each other 

 when growing in clo-e neighbourhood. The leaves 

 sent by Mr. Hay are certainly very peculiar, but we 

 think they are the leaves of a variety of China ])lant. 

 We would suggest, however, that leaves be sent for 

 Dr. Trimcii's opinion. — Kn.] 



HARVESTING CINCHO.VA. 



Deltota. July 2nd 1885. 



Dear Sir, — ChrUlie, in bis Prize Essay on Cinchona 

 Cultivation, states : "From 4 year old trees at a medium 

 distance apart, I think 80 Hi. n>tt l>ark per cooly 

 is a good average ; and from old trees 100 or even 

 120 lb. can be brought in " ; so that the T'J lb. 

 from trees to 7 years iu Ilewa Elija is after all not 

 a very good average. 



Iu May 127 coolies harvested 18,435 lb. nett bark, 

 the average for each cooly being 145 j.^^ylb. ; in Juno 67 



