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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, [September i, 18S5. 



from the root upwards, witliout showing any sign 

 above ground, which is contrary to the usual habits 

 of the termites. It seems quite probable that the 

 proti'acted drought at the commeDcement of the year 

 may have operated so as to have induced the white- 

 ants to move from the dead wood Ijing on the estate 

 to the living bushes. The great question now will 

 be the best means of eradicating the evil. In our 

 T. A. back issues will be found notices of scores of 

 remedies for white-ants, of which probably arsenic is 

 one of the most useful. But the most effectual measure 

 to adopt, and it will be a measure of cultivation, is 

 to attack all the ueata on the estate, hoeing down 

 and spreading over the surface the built up soil and 

 digging out and destroying in every case the neat and 

 its occupants, taking care never to miss the queen, 

 a huge grub-like creature. Fowls would be useful 

 in the work of destruction, and we believe many of 

 the coolies would cook and use the white-ants for 

 food. If all the white-ant nests existing were de- 

 stroyed and no new ones allowed to be formed, while 

 unsparing war was waged against every insect which 

 showed itself, we cannot doubt that the destructive 

 creatures could be exterminated. Timber could be 

 gathered and stacked in convenient places. There is 

 comfort in what seems to be the fact, that only in 

 their earlier stages have white-ants been destructive 

 on Indian estates. Then, again, we suppose that all 

 ettates at altitudes of over 3,000 feet (?) or certainly 

 3,500 are exempt from attacks by white-ants. What 

 their exact limit is we are not prepared to say, but 

 we certainly never saw or heard of any at or beyond 

 3,500 feet. 



A tea planter who has had experience of white- 

 ants on patches suggests that probably in the above case, 

 grub had done the mischief before the white-ants com- 

 menced operations. His experience is that white ants 

 attack tea trees which have suffered from grub. But 

 the great point is that in such cases supplies of 

 tea come on so much more quickly and certainly 

 than was the case with coffee. Tea has, no doubt, 

 a variety of enemies in Ceylon as elsewhere ; but 

 they can all be fought and conquered ; and grubbed 

 fields, when the attack has passed, may become the 

 most prosperous on the plantation. 



Brazil Coffee. — A New York correspondent assures 

 the Batavia Dogblad of the 23rd June that iu Brazd 

 the Rio coffee crop this year reaches fuur millions 

 of bales. The Santos crop is estimated at two and 

 a half millions of bales, it amounting ten years ago 

 to hardly six hundred thousand bales. Advices from 

 Brazil agree in anticipating heavier yields in years 

 to come with every prospect of still lower prices ruling. 

 — Straits Tiinis. 



Cotton Tree Seed as a Food.— A French savant 

 claims to have discovered in cotton-tree seed a nutriti- 

 ous matter, presenting some most remarkable 

 features in its compositions. An analysis of the 

 Beed of cotton-trees, o! which several varieties are 

 cultivated in Bolivia, shows that this is the richest 

 of all known grains in nitrogenous substances. He U 

 convinced that cotton-tree seed will make a flour destined 

 to take an important place as a fcod t.r mau. — Amtrican 

 Grocer, 



A Spider's Cai'ACITY. — A gentleman scientifically in. 

 cliued captured a spider, and, by a careful estimate, 

 made by means of actually weighing il and then confin- 

 ing it in a cage, he found that it ate four times its weight 

 for breakfast, nearly nine times its weight for dinner, 

 thirteen times its weight for supper, finishing up with 

 an ounce, and at 8 p.m., when he was released, ran off 

 in search of iooA.— American Grocer. [Unless the spiders 

 spun web in proportion, it would not pay to keep them 

 for eilk production, ~£b.] 



Tapkoot of Tea.— Herewith (says a merchant) a 

 specimen of a tea plant 12 months old from Ythanaide, 

 showing the taproot. This may interest you. [We 

 should think so : to see a tea plant 9J inches above 

 the surface of the soil, at a year old, having a tap- 

 root straight away down measuring 52 inches into 

 the earth, is rather unusual ! It is worth sending round 

 the Fort.— Ed] 



Plantini! in Seychelles. — In a letter that we 

 have received from Mr. E. H. Edwards, of MahtS 

 [an old Ceylon planter] he says: " i'ou will be 

 glad to hear that I have at last been successful 

 witli my tea .seed. I find nurseries at a low elevation 

 are not a success, but some plants that I have put 

 out at an altitude of about 1,400 feet are thriving 

 well. Cinchona also will not do at or near sea 

 level ; I am going to give it a trial at the same 

 elevation as that where the tea fiourishes. My rubbers 

 are coming on capitally : nutmeg seeds from Mauritius, 

 I am sorry to say, are a failure : the time in transit is 

 too long. A friend of mine has raised some cardamoms, 

 from seed!; I am promised a few plants. Mr. Scott, of 

 your Gardens, is rendering me great assistance ; scarcely 

 a mail arrives but I receive seeds of some kind or 

 other from him. I wish I could say I had a helping 

 hand here : the present Head of the Government 

 appears to be dead against any agricultural innovation 

 and I have to contend against no little injustice." We 

 hear that Mr. J. H. Hope was a passenger onboard 

 the 'Salazie' on her homeward voyage. This gentle- 

 man arrived in Mahe a short time ago on a tour of 

 inspection, and he is so pleased with the climate and 

 general prospects of an agricultural life there, that he 

 has purchased an estate, and now returns to England 

 to bring out his family. We wish him every success. 

 We also hear that Mejprs. Galbraith and Maclean have 

 purchased the well known ' Cascade " estate. — 

 Mercantile Record and Commercial Gazette, 



Mr. Pkestoe, the Government Botanist of Trinidad, 

 at the request of the Tobago Agricultural Society, has 

 just paid a visit of inspection to Tobago, where several 

 estates have lately gone into liquidation, with a view 

 to suggesting some form of cultivation which shall 

 replace sugar. He has expressed himself as greatly 

 surprized at finding the island so different from what 

 casual reports had led him to expect, and he declares 

 that it is superior in natural advantages to either 

 Gren.ida or St. Lucia. Be that as it may, he saw on his 

 tour round the island tracts of land which, as he 

 expressed it, "seemed to have been formed especially 

 to grow cocoa," alongside of other tracts, abundantly 

 watered, which he described as "magnificent oanegrow- 

 ing land, on which central factories ought to be 

 established. His formal report will shortly be issued, 

 which we expect will help to dispel the unaccount- 

 ably bad impression which prevails about the Colony; 

 but in the meantime an effort is being made to form 

 a company to take up one of the recently sequestrated 

 estates for the purpose of adopting Mr. Prestoe's re- 

 commendations. An estate of about 3,300 acres, to- 

 gether with all the machinery, building, and live 

 stock thereon, is to be purchased for .i'4,000, or little 

 more than £1 an acre — one-half to be paid at once, 

 and rest iu two years. How many men are there ia 

 this country who would be glad to purchase such an 

 estate at such a price for mere purposes of recreation ! 

 Properly handled, snch a property ought to yield an 

 enormous profit, for even under sugar cultivation the 

 land is really worth ten times the amount proposed 

 to be paid for it. The venture will be brought before 

 the notice of investors simultaneously in the West Indies 

 and in London, and there ought to he no difficulty what- 

 ever in raising the money. If one such venture succeeds, 

 the chance of buying up another such an estate ou 

 nuoh terms ia hardly likely tQooauT.—CglQnies and India, 



