August i, 1885.] 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



149 



The Futuke op Tsa ik Ceylos. — The Indian Tea 

 Gazette writes:— Very sanguine expectations are being 

 formed as to this matter, which, for the fake of 

 Ceylon itaelf, even, it is to be hoped may not be 

 realized. We read as follows: — "The chairman of 

 the Cejlon Chamber of Commerce, at the recent half- 

 yearly meeting, dealt with the prospects of the staple 

 products of the Colony, and went into a calculation 

 showing that in a few years' time Ceylon would be 

 exporting 52i niilliou pounds of tea." The " Chairman" 

 is cautious iu saj'ing how many years he means by 

 "a few." Ceylon, it is true, is going ahead in tea 

 cultivation, but the auticipated leap up to b'2h millions 

 in a presumably short space of time is rather too 

 much, we should think, even for Ceylon ambition. 

 Colonel Money has already sounded a note of warning 

 as to over extension of tea cultivation in the Island, 

 and we may trust to the common sense of Ceylon 

 planters for restraining them from overdoing an Indus- 

 try which, if limited to dne bounds, may do much to 

 recompense them for the failure of cofifee. All extremes 

 are bad, and a departure from reasonable caution, 

 in tlie case of tea extension, would be attended by 

 a collapse more serious even than that which the 

 Island has suffered from coffee, ^albeit the collapse 

 might result from different causes. [The Tea Gazette 

 should impress caution on tea-planters neartr home. — Eu.] 



Tea and Fibres. — Maskeliya, 13th July. — We have 

 had a very smart dose of the monsoon, but evidently not 

 as much as down the valley : June measured only 

 33 '43 here against Theberton 49 odd, and they 

 must have had more wind. The early tea planting 

 is criming on very, very well. The cold weather 

 is against the old tea flut^hing now. In August, 

 September and October it will come out j then prune. 

 Our tea " boss," sajs, now is the time to prune, and 

 also that tea bushes "should be plucked once a 

 week." Surely this sounds too much Will some of 

 your experienced correspondents kindly answer this? 

 I say old tea once 10 days ; 5 0ung tea (up to 3^ years) 

 twice a month. To add to the general grumble on state 

 of roads, you may now see the carlmeu driving in 

 a zigzag fashion actually allowing one vheel go on 

 the grass, so aj to keep the bullocks' feet on the smooth 

 road and avoid the darned patches. It is cruelty to 

 force any beast with cloven foot to pull a weight 

 having loose, broken, sharpedged stone as a " footing." 

 "Shuck" is a very common expression iu the South 

 of Ireland, and ie applied to animals, cattle, horses, 

 4c.: very leun or worn-out animals, "tinkers' donkeys," 

 and horses ; or more commonly to animals that have 

 not been housed during the winter, only getting a 

 little li.ay near a sheltered ft-nce, are called "shuck" 

 cattle. — Any fibre-yieldiug stuff must bf! very ex- 

 hansting to land, and would requii-e manuring in 

 bulk heavily, would uot pay out licre I fear. Against 

 the crowirg of ilix on most properties in Ireland, 

 there is a prohibitory clause m the lease as a rule, bo 

 much does it injure land, and always after such a 

 crop the farmer mmt till the land again (take a crop 

 of roots) before laying it down with grass seeds. 

 Leaf-disease showing on our collee again on some 

 patclies badly. 1 have found in planting at stake 

 several of the 2nd plants a wild sort of tea, not 

 in the very least like a lea, and on two occasions 

 the kernel of the seed was still adhering to the 

 plant when taken up ; and when I mentioned it 

 to another planter he declared it to be impossible, 

 60 there I let it rest. It was not a case of nursery 

 plants, but planting at stake two seeds in each hole, 

 the one a goo.l jit tea and the other a jungle or 

 wild plant. If I can find any more, I will send them 

 down to you. I am afraid, in supplying they have 

 been removed. I am now convinced it was a cross of 

 some jungle tree. Kaining still — not heavy, and this 

 } ear no great Hood as yet. 



Coconut AND its uses.— Britannia needs no bulwarks," 

 says the old song, aud we shall need a new version 

 for old Lanka, if her coconut palms should be found 

 to yield a product so valuable tor the defence of the 

 British Navy as that referred to in the following 

 extract. It is sent to us by a correspondent who 

 believes it to be taken fi-om the Daily Telegraph : — 



It has been discovered in France that a composition 

 obtained from pulverised coconut cellulose has the remark- 

 able property, when penetrated by shot or shell, of 

 closing up instantaneously, so as to prevent the influx 

 of water into a ship's hold. The name of " cofl'erdam " 

 has been given to this preparation, for which it ia 

 claimed that not only will it render harmless the pertoratio a 

 of a ship's sides by any projectile which strikes them 

 above water, but that it will also disarm the torpedo of 

 its submarine powers of mischief. I'"or the present, it will 

 perhaps be enough to watch whether the French have in 

 reality made such a discovery as will enable them to 

 line the armour-plates of their men-of-war with a pre- 

 paration which is at once light and elastic, and also of a 

 nature to forbid the admission of water into a ship's sides 

 when riddled by shot aud shell. If all that is reported of 

 the Toulou experiments with '■ cofferdam " be true, the 

 compound seems destined to .solve the armour-plate 

 controversy by turuiug tbe scale once more iu favour of the 

 swift or thinly-plated vessel. Haviug built up a target of 

 cofferdam, made of a mixture of fourteen parts of pulv- 

 erised cellulose, and of one part of cellulose iu fibre 

 compressed into a felt-like mass, the French inventor, 

 lined the side of an iron-plated ship with a layer of the 

 new compound two feet in thickness. Against this strange 

 target a solid shot, seven and a half inches in diameter, 

 was launched, with the highly-satisfactory result that the 

 projectile carried away with it one-fifth of a cubic foot 

 of the composition, and that, no sooner had the shot 

 passed through the target, th.an the cellulose closed up 

 so firmly that a strong man was unable to thrust his arm 

 through the hole. A box or tank filled with water was 

 then hung against the aperture ; and after the lapse of 

 fifteen minutes a few drops of the liquid began to trickle 

 through the hole in the cofferdam. When the composition 

 had been thoroughly saturated, not more than from three 

 to five pints of water made their escape inwards in a 

 minute, when they were intercepted without difficulty by 

 a man armed with a pail. As soon as the cellulose had 

 become completely soaked, it offered greater resistance to 

 the percolation of fluid, which finally ceased almost en- 

 tirely to flow. The spongelike texture of the target resisted 

 the leakage of water through the hole so effectually that 

 the breach closed up automatically. The results were 

 the same whether shot or shell was employed against the 

 target ; and it W!vs also discovered that, in addition to 

 excluding water, the cofferdam was proof against ignition 

 by fire. Ke<l-hot coals were heaped upon the cellulose 

 without setting it alight, and thus far appearances seem 

 to warrant the conclusion that an iron-plated ship, lined 

 with two feet of cofferdam, has nothing to fear, when 

 ]ierforated with shot, from either water or fire. " The 

 experiments," says our contemporary, " seem to i>rove that 

 the material in question possesses the prope-rty of closing 

 automatically a leak caused by shot or hIicII, andof protect- 

 ing a ship to a certain extent against fire." it will thus be 

 seen that all maritime nations are vitally interested in 

 ascertaining whether a backing of coconut cellulose is 

 really calculated to render ironclad ships impervious to 

 water when penetrated by a projectile launched against 

 her by an enemy. T'pon the importance attaching to this 

 discovery it would be idle to expatiate, althoni^h we must 

 be permitteif to express the gravest doubts whether 

 acolfcjrdam will ever be able to resist the fatal efl'ects of <a 

 torpedo exploded under a ship's hull. In order to in- 

 vestigate this point thoroughly, we understand that fresh 

 experiments are about to be tried at'l'oiilon; hut enough, 

 and more than enough, has already been said to show that 

 it would be the height of folly for the British Admiralty 

 to chifio their eyes to the possible valno of a discovery 

 which may add enormously to the defensive efficiency of 

 such a magnificent fleet of ironehul vessels as that with 

 which Admiral Sir CJeoffrey llornby is about put to 

 sea. 



