242 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1885 



The Musical Instrument Trade in Saxony. — i 

 This industry, which employs raauy hunflred men 

 in Upper VogtUul, was not very satisfactorily 

 silua'ed cluri g 18fl4. The imports from Zanzibar 

 have up to the present been very small. Cocoa- 

 wood was dearer than in the prectding year, and 

 speckled wood rose from 50 to 70 psr cent. Brazil- 

 wood aud horse-flesh maljogany showed no change, 

 and (he liner qualities of red ebony brouuht a little 

 higher prices. — Kiihlow'>< Oeriauii Trade Ufview. 



Tobacco.— According to Mr. Crowe, British Consul 

 in Cuba, cigars, suited to the taste of tha British 

 smoker, are very difficult to obtain in Havannah. 

 Mr. Crowe allows that there is plenty of "dark, 

 powerful tobacco," of tine quality, at moderate, 

 though by no means low rates. But if a smoker 

 desires a light leaf, with aroma such as the 

 " educated palate of an Englishman " seeks, he must 

 be prepared to pay for it. Only about 10 per cent 

 of the tobacco harve4 of Cuba can be classed as of 

 this quality ; and apart from the cost of the raw 

 material, the best makers of the best cigars obtain 

 wages which alone would render tlieir handiwork of 

 va'ue. As much a=i 40 dollars in gold are paid to 

 skilled labourers for turning out l.O'O "first-class 

 goi'fls," Tiiis m-'ini that a cigar of this grade 

 costs two pence for the mere rollmg, apart from the 

 Ijoxing, the price of the tobacco, th« freight, the 

 Cuotom-house duty, the interest on the capital ex- 

 pended, or the profits of the two or three middlemen 

 before it gets between the bps of the European 

 consumer. — H. and C. ]\Iai!. 



Cinchona Febrifuge Manufaotuke in India. — 

 Says a Calcutta contemporary : -" The capital outlay 

 by the Bengal Governintnt on the cinchona plant- 

 ations in Bengal, and the manufacture of febri- 

 iwe, bioce the fir.st commenoement of tliegardins, 

 has been RIO, 84,202, wlio', ve are told, 1 at bem 

 recoup! d more than twice over by the sav ng 

 effected by the substitution of cinchona febrifuge 

 for quinine in the Government medical institu- 

 tions. Looked at in a more purely commercial 

 light, the operations of last year realized a profit 

 of rv37,.'iS2, which is equal to a dividend of about 

 3J per cent on the capital outlay, exclusive of 

 the saving from the use of the febrifuge. The 

 total re\enue for the year was Rl, 24,225, whilst 

 the expenditure was KS1,7 6. The crop for the 

 year amounted to 339,201 lb. of dry bark, of 

 which 325,125 1b. were red, and 14,07() lb. yellow 

 baik. The whole of this crop, with but a small 

 exoeptiou, was made over to the febrifuge factory 

 for disposal. The demand, however, for the febri- 

 fuge seems to be decreasing, fur tie au.ouut issui d 

 last year was only 7,152 lb. 4oz,, as against P, 144 lb. 

 12 oz. in the previom year, 



AiinownooT.— A coiTeaponJcnt, writinu; from Coomcra 

 Oil 2()ih July, sayfl ;—" The arrowroot-making id uncnra- 

 monly late this year, only one or two milLs haviug as yet 

 begun the work, Shortueiia of water is still the cry in 

 Son e ca.srb, and in olhcrs the machinery is rot yet 

 reaily. There is a good crojj of bulbs which the frost 

 will not iiijure, biit delay into the warm and growiug 

 tVeather will lessen th(i flower of the bulb by the less 

 tvbifh slioots will occasion ; yet is there no probability of 

 »icariity in the article, or reduction in the quafity, there 

 htint' liberal stocks on hftnd from last ytar. Theexten- 

 .«!< (1, however, in the area under arrowroot appears to 

 have received a check from the reduction in price of the 

 pa-t and present year. Maize is generally a poor crop, 

 and VI ry little, if any, can be spared for town after local 

 wiiLts are supplied. I know of no sales under Is. From 

 the hit h hills the severe effects of the frosts of June are 

 vi-il'le on .ill sides in the whiteness of the canefields, 

 and tie light-brown of the grass, but the cane on the 

 h'llsis treeu, and some of it is fven now growimj. The 

 luiUs aie cfusliin^- their own caue with ail speed, 3u4 



putting off that of other growers until their own is safe 

 but their will be hardly time to save all before some even 

 of that is unfit for sugar-making ; the rest will prob- 

 ably be a loss to the gTO-mers.—Queen.dandei: 



AGEXCULTURE t IN THE CENTRAL AND NOETHEKN PbO- 



VINCES. — Qtiot homines, tot scntciitiuo: as many men, so 

 many opinions : as many places, so many methods to 

 suit circumstances. In the Central Province, where the 

 Kandyans, whatever you may say, know not what it is 

 to do without a meal a day, we can understand the 

 necessity of teaching them to take more out of the soil 

 than they usually do, telling them of the necessity of 

 strenuous exertion. The fact is the Kandyans go in only 

 for one tillage during the year, with all their heart, and 

 tliat is the inaJia harvest. It is only of late, that in the 

 out-skirts of towns a few of them, languidly, grudgingly, 

 because goaded by authority, go in for the ijcdla bar. 

 vest. The Kandyans altogether live on their native rice 

 They think it a shame to sell their paddy : and it necess-" 

 ity compels them to do so they do it on the sly. It is 

 a fact that all the beggars in the Central Province are 

 in nationality, cither low-country Singhalese or Portu- 

 guese descendants. A Kandyan, a bona fide Kandyan 

 beggar is a "rare bird." The Kandyans rather desire 

 to rot and die than disgrace themselves by begging. 

 They have enough : their soil supplies them the grain 

 for the year : their garden gives them their vegetable 

 store; their jungle gives them their meat; and their 

 garden provides them the few rupees with which they 

 purchase clothes. They do not indulge in luxuries. Their 

 idea of happiness is to lie still. Your glowing eulogy 

 of trade and enterprize, of improving agriculture and 

 getting the best out of the soil are quite wasted ; they 

 go liome and in dignified sarcasm tell their wives of the 

 fool who wants them to betake themselves to extra 

 labour for no earthly reason at all. Necessity is the 

 mother of invention ; and till the Kandyan is driven by 

 necessity, you cannot expect him with all his heart, to 

 espouse the new invention of a plough, or a more educ- 

 ated S5'stem of agriculture. In the Northern Province it 

 is otherwise. We live on what the land yields us ; and 

 when that fails we starve ; or go about pawning our 

 jewels. Agriculture here is our very life and subsist- 

 ence. It is so with all of us ; either in our fields, in 

 our tobacco gardens, in our coconut and palmirah plant- 

 ations, or in our vegetable gardens. We live by the soil. 

 In no other province do you see gardens so cleanly kept, 

 fenced and enclosed and trees watered by the Egyptian 

 pulley in quite a skilfiU method of irrigation. Drains or 

 water-courses ramify the garden, conveying the water to 

 a wide basin, dug out round each tree, so that really 

 it is rivers of water that our trees enjoy both morning 

 and evening. Our fields are plentifufty manured. We 

 have seen cart-loads of seaweed, which, otherwise waste 

 their "stink" in the sea-shore air, propagating malaria 

 among our fishermen, carried in bullock carts and buried 

 in our fields. We have seen branches of trees and 

 bundles of green leaves from our jungles undergo the 

 same operation. We have seen all dried leaves of Pal- 

 mirah and oadjans readily asked for to manure our fields. 

 Wu hwe seen bones, ashes and cart-loads of other 

 refuse made use of to enrich our soil : which after all is 

 but a Burfaoe-mould of manure. The Province eeeras, 

 originally to have been but a sand-bank, created by the 

 o.iprice of mother ocean who set her children, wind and 

 wave, to play all sorts of tricks with it. In such a place, 

 and to Bucli liard-workiiig cultivators, your ideas of better 

 ploughs, and a more scienfiSc method of cultivation are 

 all tneoties which to them seem but the mirage of the 

 desert, Wc want water. Give us artesian wells. Give 

 il6 fniiks. tet tis not depend upon the former and the 

 latfet rain, aud what we can reserve of rainfalls in our 

 bunds. Let us h.ave a plentiful supply of flowiug water : 

 and the JafVna cultivator Hill teach you a lesson or two 

 of successful agriculture. Let no Enclishniau think wei 

 do not know to farm, or cultivate grain. When your 

 forefathers went about dyeing their skins, and ealitig 

 only green cheese and curd, wc produced the grain that 

 fed us well and our loom produced the cloth which then 

 as now clothe us. Give us water. Give us water ; and 

 there shall accrue a revenue from grain produce that will 

 enable you to make a Eailway to the, not moon, but the 

 distant sun.— "Ceylou Patriot," August i^lth. 



