^M 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 



[Dec. I, 1885, 



pvii'o in the Erglish market. The peeler, sizers, &c., are 

 all connected and the whole machinei-y is worked by a 

 single engine. 'When the coffee has been sized it i.s 

 given out to be garbled or sifted and cleared of 

 stones, broken and blackened beans, &c. This work 

 is done by women, and on the 'W'estern Coast the 

 Theelns are great adepts at it, as they learn it from 

 their infancy, anrl it is no common thing to see 

 little mites, no bigger tlian the sieves they carry, 

 competing with grown-np women in the quantity 

 they are required to garble. After being garbled 

 the coffee is packed in .single or double Bags in the 

 order in which it has been sized, 1, 2, 3, each bag 

 contains 1^ cwt. : it is then shipped per chartered 

 steamer or 13. I. S. N. Co.'s boat via the Suez 

 Oanal. Jlost if not all the plantation or parchment 

 coffee finds its way to England, little or none goes 

 to the Continent. The triage or defective and broken 

 beans and black coffee are similarly sized, packed 

 and shipped, the refuse being sold in the country. 

 Even the stones that have been taken out during 

 garbling fetch a good price when sold, less on ac- 

 count of the little coffee they may contain than for 

 the puipose of adulteration hereafter. 



What is generally known as lUitn-e coffee is what 

 is shipped to the Continent. This description of 

 coft'ee receives dift'ereut treatment during cultivation 

 and curing. The trees receive less attention and 

 are permitted to grow to their natural size, where- 

 as on European plantations they are kept at a 

 uniform height ot from 3J to 4 feet, being regularly 

 pruned aud all superfluous wood and new shoots 

 removed at intervals. This is not done on the Native 

 estates. The fruit is galliered in the same manner 

 as parchment coffee, but it is not pulped, it is merely 

 dried. When the cherry is sufficiently dry it is 

 poimded and winnowed. The pounder used in Coorg 

 is of a very primitive description, being simply a 

 piece of wood placed on a pivot and worked by the 

 foot, the coffee being placed in a hole in the groinid. 

 When the coffee beans have been cleared of all the 

 chart' they are sent down to the curing works, 

 garbled, packed and shipped in the same manner. 

 It is seldom sized like parchment cottee. Native 

 cort'ee has a more pleasiint ffavuur, retaining more 

 of the aroma of the fruit which the bean absorbs 

 during the process of drying; it is chiefly for this 

 reason it is so much better hked on the Continent, 

 and it is comparatively cheaper than plantation. — 

 CoOKii. — Madras Mail. 



THE DATE PALM. 

 In Luckuow I introduced the Date I'alm from the 

 Persian t4ulf, through the Government of India, both 

 by seeds and by imported offsets. There are some 

 hundreds of many varieties of both kinds in Luckuow, 

 and many hundreds from seeds in many parts of Oudh. 

 In Luckuow they were imported between 1S69 aud 

 1S73. These had been under my care aud close ob- 

 servation up to 1877-8. Since then I have often seen 

 them. They are growing very luxuriantly, and are 

 irrigated during the hot winds from wells 20 feet or 

 so deep. During the rains they are subject to an 

 aveiage annual rainfall of 30 inches. lu the winter 

 there the temperature has been down 5° Fahr. below 

 freezing point, and in the hot winds I am afr.iid (o 

 say what temperature they are .subject to, and there 

 is no .\ea-air, Ufany of the Tatcknow Date Palms have 

 lieen flowering aud fruiting— artificial fcrtih'sation is 

 (ir: ctised in most cases. Mr, Hidley, under whose care 

 tbty are at present, has stated that their fruit is good, 

 iiud it is stated that some are delicious. I have tasted 

 flonie, aud found them very sweet aud nice. Another 

 O'Kccr from Pert«abgurh says, that those which ripens 

 fruit .■>re delicious.. Even the small skinny fruit (.tf the 

 P. sylvcstiis. when not tapped for " toddy," is eaten 

 by uati^-es. I cannot, therelore, understand how it is 

 tbat the Date Calms in the .South i)f Eurojie are said 

 to be witluuit fruit, ami that " tiie cause is the dry 

 summer, there being uo tubterraueau wells, ns is the 

 ta.se in the Sahara." 



From the study I h.ayc made of the Phienix sylvest- 

 ris .and P. dactylifera (which are in reality two vari- 

 eiies of the .same species) I am of opinion that neither 

 subterranean wells nor a desert climate are essential 

 to its liLxuriant and successful growth. We nmst, 

 therefore, look for some other reason to account for 

 its being " witliout fruit," or for its ftuit " never being 

 fit for food" in the South of Europe. 



I have shown that the P. sylvestris grows luxuri- 

 antly in a moist climate like that of Bengal, aud in 

 all other climates, from North to South India. But 

 as it is annually bled, aud its sap converted either 

 into sugar or toddy, its fruit, when it is able to give 

 any, and when it becomes fertilised, is not fit to eat. 

 The P. sylvestris is nowhere irrigated as far as I 

 know, luit depends for moisture upon rain or upon 

 what it can suck up from the .subsoil. I have shown 

 also that the P. dactylifera will bear a variety of 

 climates and conditions, and still give good fruit. In 

 the oases of the Sahara and all along North Africa 

 and in Murcia, in Spain, jirobably it does not receive 

 any special cultiv.ation. In the interior of Arabia, 

 where there i.^ not much commercial iutercourse, and 

 where the poor people are almost wholly dependent 

 for food on their Date crop, the probability is that 

 .■I great deal of care is given to it. In Mooltan, 

 Sindh, and adjacent countries Mr. O'Brien says it is 

 nowhere cultivated, but grows spontaueously from seeds. 

 There are many varieties in Mooltan, and he sent rae 

 samples of five varieties. They were small (about the 

 size of the Muscat Dates) but sweet, and they formed 

 a gre.at part of the food of the Mooltanis aud Siudhis, 

 In Lucknow, where the couditions are different from 

 the places before mentioned, it also grows well. 



But the climate where it appears to come to great 

 perfection, and where it is cultivated with great care 

 and skill, is that of the Persian Gulf. There it is 

 tended as if it were a child — irrigated regularly, man- 

 ured with either fish or other animal manures. As 

 there are only female plantatioas the flowers of each 

 bimch are carefully fertilised by males brought from 

 anywhere (sometimes from another district.) The 

 irrigation is stopped for several weeks after fertilis- 

 ation, and finally only from eight to twelve bunches 

 of Dates .are left on the tree out of the twenty-four 

 or so that it bears. Nevertheless, with all this care 

 and .'ildll they say that those Dates which by ac- 

 . cidcut have uot been fertilised are "stoueless and 

 insipid, and only fit for goats." 



Palgrave, in his, Jotimey tln-oni/h Arahia, says that 

 of all the kinds of Dates he had eaten the " khalis " 

 of El Hasa in the Gulf is the facHi: pt-innps of the 

 Date kind. He says it bears the same relation to 

 the ordinary Date which the jungle Jlaugo bears to 

 the Bombay Mango. In the (iiulf the Date tree re- 

 ceives as much cultivation as Oranges or any other 

 choice fruit trees receive iu Europe. 



Let us glance now at the cultivation of Date Palms 

 iu the Riviera. Irrespective of any irrigalion, uianiu-- 

 ing, iSte., which are uot mentioned, the leaves at cert- 

 aiu seasons are swathed, hke Leltuccs, to b'anch 

 them for church ceremonials. They are cut at Easter, 

 for .supplying leaves for Palm Sunday to Koun.' and 

 other places, aud also in August for Jewish observ- 

 ances. Now, considering that the leaves to the plant 

 arc what the stomach and lungs are to the animal— 

 that they are required to be, not only luxuriant, but 

 in large numbers, to supply healthy sap for the 

 growth of the tree and the production of its fruit— 

 we need uot, I think, trouble ourstdves about either 

 "underground Wells," or dry summers to account for 

 the P.ordighera Diite Palms giving either •• bad fruit, 

 or none at all." [All the Palms on the Eiviera are 

 not so treated, and yet ripe fruit is almost unknown.— 

 En.] In the Persian Gulf, they say, the D.ite Palm 

 is not tapped for "toddy." It could be tapped, how- 

 ever, they say, "but at the e.\pen.se of the fruit." 

 It is a wonder to me that the Date I'alins of the 

 South of l"',urope continue to exist at all, nmier Si:ch 

 treatment; 1 should say, however, that they can be 

 swathed, and that their leaves can be cut off, tp 



