I9S 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [September i, 1S85. 



Estates asd CREtrT. — A proprietary Planter, 

 who, while determined to act on St. Paul's principle, 

 " Owe no mm anything,' U working his properties i 

 without agents or cash credits and is therefore de- 

 pendent for funds on getting hi< produce away and 

 drawing agaiust shipment, expresses the opinion that 

 " it means ruin to thinl- of borrowing money in these 

 days, and that if an estate cannot be kept going on its 

 own merits it is best to throw it up at once.' 



Emaxcipatiox or Civil Wak is' Brazil — The Ifio 

 JNV«J thus concludes an article on the slavery question 

 in Brazil: — A compromise, therefore, c mid only produce 

 temporary lull, sutficieat perhaps to hide from the 

 country the abyss to which it was softly gliding, bnt 

 the abysm is none the less there and will be, sooner 

 or later, surely reached. As there are physical diseases 

 only curable by heroic remedies, so are there social 

 cancers oaly to be extirpated by distress, and perhaps 

 misery for a period, and although this sentiment is 

 somewhat thread-bare, it will serve as preface to our 

 project which is : decree the immediate abolition of 

 8l.»very throughout the Empire of Brazil. I 



SocTH CooBG, 7th July. — Our rainfall to date has been j 

 very favourable, about thirty inches ; the crops are large 

 and vigorous, but the tendency for prices to lemaiu low 

 damp the spirit of enterprising owners of the soil. A 

 good many reiluctions have been effected, and working 

 expenses cut down to the lowest. The cry of *' no 

 money in the country " rings in every person's ears, 

 while one large firm has issued a circular indicating fur- 

 ther reductions nest year if prices don't rise. This is very 

 hard on Superintendents who work hard to get the crop 

 and who have no control over the coffee-market ! Their 

 prospects are gloomy and each fears to send for his 

 daily tappal in case the fatal notice of *• your services are 

 no longer required &c.'' should turn up, but every cloud 

 has a silver liuing, so let us hope for better things to j 

 come ; past experience has taught proprietors to economise 

 now. — Jfadi-as Mill. 



Tea is Sylhet. — A correspondent of the Cslcutta 

 Englishman says:— Until a wtek ago, bright hot days 

 with rain at nights wss the weather prevailing in 

 North Sylbet. For tea better weather than this Ci'Uld 

 not be desired ; it brings on t e flushes in grand 

 style and accelerates the fermentation of leaf. Profit- 

 ing by seasonable weather and favourable conditions 

 generally, most of the gardens in Xort'i S.vlhet are 

 getting on with th<=ir manufacture giily ; the Lallakhal 

 Garden being, I hear already upwards of two hundred 

 mannds in advance of its out-turn fur the correspond- 

 ing period of la^t year. Bar accidents, the crop for 

 IS80 shonld be a bumper one. But what is good . 

 weather for tea is not always enjoyable weather for I 

 man, and I for one hail the change from hot steamy ' 

 days t3 rainy weather once mors with satisfaction. 

 Yesterday we had several inchfS ; and as I write, 

 heavy rain is falling with a persistency that bodes evil 

 for the d"vellers on low lands. ! 



Leafdiseask is- Netheklasds I.VDiA. — The follow- I 

 iag paragnp"! shows that the coffee fundus is pursuing in 

 the Eastern Archipelago the same deadly course as it 

 took in Ceylon : — Batavia, 11th July. — Eegarding the 

 coffee leaf-disease in Mid Java, a Samarang newspaper 

 gives some discouragng figures furni-h-d by Mr. Mic- ' 

 Gillavray, of the Satirongo estate, on which, in 1SS4. the 

 crop was only between nne-third and ooe-fourth of that 

 gathered in ISSo. The information bore upon about 

 30 estates which, during 1S84, as compare 1 with ISS3, ' 

 had suffered heavily more or less according tj tieir I 

 respective height above sea-level, but whose collective 

 yield in I8S1 amounted to only 'Jo 0€o piculs agunst 

 61 87"2 in 1SS3. On some of these estates, the outturn 

 fell from l.SOO to 120 picnls. Takea altogether, it 

 appears that in ltS4 compared with the previous year 

 the coUeciive crop on these 30 estates was short tJ 

 the value of eleven hundred thonsind guilders, some 

 of them bearing a disproportionate share of the Joss. 

 — Baiaeia DagbUid, 



Wood VALr.VBLE por Tea Boxes is thus noticed 

 in the proceedings of the Aladras Agri-Horti- 

 cultural Society ; — A small bag of seed of Evoctia 

 meliix/olia (wood valuable for tea boxes), from J. S. 

 Gamble, Esq., Conservator of Forests, Northern Circle. 



IXDiARCBBER Plates FOR ARMorR. — Under Admir- 

 alty directions, an extraordinary experiment is to be 

 made at Portsmouth, and the results are anticipated 

 with remarkable interest. Targets coated with india- 

 rubber sheets are to be fi.xed on sides of armour-clad 

 resistance, and they will be subjected to progressive 

 gunnery tests, commencing with a six-pounder quick 

 firing gun and increasing, if possible, up to a Sin, 

 nine-ton breech-loader. Shonld the trials be attended 

 with success, as is expected by some experts, the 

 arming of men-of-war will be almost rerolutionised, 

 indiarubbei sheets, specially prepared, being largely 

 substituted for armour plates. — IVeekly Echo. 



Snails ast) Eczema or Skis Irrcptios-s. — We 

 recommend the following cutious experience, sent by 

 a clersymau to the Standard, to residents in the 

 Far East: — "Some year ago, suffering from a severe 

 attack of eczema, for which I could get no relief, 

 while walking one evening in my garden, and in 

 great pain, I happened to cast my eye upon a snail, 

 and as my leg was burning and the snail looked so 

 cool I at once rubbed it over the itchiug part, and 

 found immediate relief; so much so that I got two 

 or three more, and, breaking off the shell, applied 

 them, letting it dry in. That night I slept in per- 

 fect ease, and of course followed up my new found 

 remedy, and in a few days eczema was all gone, and, 

 I am thankful to say, never returned. I have re- 

 commended the same to my friends who have suffered 

 from the like complaint, and all have found relief. 

 It IS, also an almost infallible cure for skin diseases, 

 and deserves to be better known than it is.' — StraiU 

 Tim's. 



The QrKKX or Flowers nt Cevlox. — On many 

 upland es'ates in Ceylon we have teen not only 

 gArden plots but hedges brilliant with a wealth of 

 roses. But nntil the receipt (fa basket from Mr. 

 A. Whyte of Kandy, a few dajs »go, we had but an 

 imperfect idea of the perfection of form, colour and 

 fragrance to which the very finest species of roses can 

 be brought in our island by careful and intellii:ent 

 cultivation. When the basket was opened, a scene of 

 exquisite beauty was suddenly revealed, the many- 

 petalled, conipict and large blossoms displaying every 

 shade of crimson, pink, glorious golden-yellow and 

 white. The basket was more than half filled with 

 damp mess, and in this were placed a number of 

 pDrons earthen pots which held the bouquets of roses, 

 the stems of the tlowers being aho in damp moss 

 with which the pots were half fi led. So packed, Mr. 

 Whyte told us, he was able to send his roses in good 

 condition to distances so remote from Kandy as Galle, 

 Our readers will now know where to apply for the 

 most exquisite of floral adornments, on occasions of 

 marriages or ot'aer festive meetings, cr for the brighten- 

 ing of everyday life, especially to the ladies of 

 families. There was a large bunch of vari-colonred 

 and sweetly fragrant roses in each pot, and each of 

 the bunches was made up of a number of a smaller 

 bouquets, so that the flowers could be concentrated, 

 or spread over the tibl-^s of a drawingroom or 

 boudoir at pleasure. Mr. Whyte, besides being a well- 

 informed naturalist and a competent taxide mist (in 

 which characters we trust he may be enr.ploved to add 

 to the interest of the Ceylon Court in the Co'ooal and 

 Indian Exhibition), has the instincts and feelings of 

 a true artist and deserves encourasiement from those 

 who delight in the curiosities and " things of beauty " 

 of the animal and vegetable world of Ceylon. lie is 

 the best practical interpreter of oar natural history 

 who MB be consulted. 



