444 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Dec, I, I 885. 



Some wine has been made from wild grapes grown 

 by Mr. Barnes on the hill slopes of his Vergomont 

 Estate neixr Kaini Tal. It is said to have a very 

 pleasant flavour. Some samples, which were sent 

 to the Punjab, were said to be highly commended. — 

 Timi'x nf India. 



Db. James D. D.\n.\, in the Ameriran 

 Juunial nf ficieni-e for August, has a paper 

 on the ' Origin of Coral Eeefs.' He states 

 that the arguments raised by Dr. Archibald Geikie 

 against Darwin's theory of subsidence as an ex- 

 planation of the formation of atolls, or barrier 

 reefs enclosing a lagoon, are based on misunder- 

 standing of the facts. The subsidence indicated 

 by iitnlh is shown to be real, and not an apparent 

 change of water level. — Atlieiuriim. 



The Te.v Chop. — It seems now almost certain 

 the Ku(jlishma» says that the tea crop for the cur- 

 rent season will fall short of the original estimates 

 by at least two million pounds. After allowing 

 about two million pounds for exports to the Colonies 

 and America and one million fi\e hundred thous- 

 and pounds for home consumption, the quantity 

 available for shipment to Great Britain is not ex- 

 pected to exceed sixty-three and a half million 

 pounds. — Pioneer. 



Adulterate!' Tea in QuEESLANn. — From the re- 

 port of the Queensland Government Analyst, Mr. 

 Robert Mar, F. C.S., for the year ending .list July 

 last, it appears that of i07 teas examined, thirty 

 were adulterated, and six of these were reported 

 "unfit for human food." Tl e adultersnts found 

 were : — Exhausted tea leaves, (from 1 to 10 

 per cent (foreign leaves, starch, gum, catechu, 

 magnetic oxide of iron, clay, and sand. One of the 

 six teas condemned as " unfit for human food " 

 contained only about .'50 per cent of genuine tea. 

 Thf other live were less sophisticated, and in these 

 cases I added, to the results of examination and 

 analysis, the considerations from physiological ex- 

 periment — upon myself — before maldng report. l!ut 

 this is net a convenient method for contirmiug an 

 opinion, and yet is the only one possible in doubt- 

 ful cases. I therefore suggested that those teas 

 should be prohibited from going into consumption 

 which in quality fell below the British Public Ana- 

 lysts Society's limit, as is the case in New Zealand. 

 This suggestion has been acted upon, and an extra 

 ofhcer of the customs (whom I instructed, and 

 who has shown aptitude in apprehending and skill 

 in following the instructions given) has been deputed 

 to make a preliminary examination of all teas 

 coming into Brisbane. The result of these ar- 

 rangements I have tested by making analyses of teas 

 imported in previous years and comparing the same 

 with those , of teas pres<?ntly coming into Queens- 

 land, and find the proportion of adulterated 

 tea sent has materially decreased, and a sensible 

 impi-ovcment has taken place in the quality of non- I 

 fldiilteiatecl teas. Of this lattev fact I ^\e ii coni- i 

 parfl'iv'j Instance; - ; 



Tea Imported, Tea Importedi J 

 188', 1S83. 



Moisture .1 I'-gi ,. (i-7.5 



fex'i-act ,. Sfi'OO .. 8100 



Afh .. 5-S'i ;; .vno 



Eoluble ash . . 3'80 , , i'-0(i 



An AMrsiNo and sensational article appeared In the 

 3Ioniiii(i PokI the other day on the Sugar (juestion. 

 Colonial planters and European beet growers were 

 told to look to their laurels, for the insignificant little 

 Hower otthc'Mahwa" or " Moola" tree, one of the 



f;iants of the forests of Centra! Hindostan, "seemed 

 ikcly to completely revolutionise the whole of the sugar 

 industry," and the writer weut on to bay; "It i» : 



already asserted that in a not very distant future 

 the beet will be discarded from the extracting pans 

 of the continental sugar bakers, and the caoe of 

 the West Indies become as extinct as the carbonised 

 palm-reeds of the pre-historic coal measures." The 

 readers of the Morninc; Post were favoured with a 

 ! most minute description of the tree, and were told 

 that it demanded no special culture, called for no 

 attention, no pruning or fertilising, was easily pro- 

 i pagated, and that it flourished in the poorest soil. 

 "With a becoming consideration for the capitalist, 

 the tree does not even ask to be picked. It is a dc- 

 : ciduous plant, and spontaneously sheds its flowers 

 during the darkness of night. The Bheels residing 

 in the forest have only to stand under the tree and 

 j the sweet harvest falls at their feet. A single 

 I shower often yields a hundred pounds of the Mahwa 

 blossoms." Such a description is enough to take 

 one's breath away. The writer proceeded to say that 

 an acre, containing from 200 to 250 trees, would 

 produce enough blossoms to give 100 to 120 tons of 

 sugar, and naively added that " competition would 

 be out of the question." We should think so in- • 

 deed. But the writer, whoever he may be, seems to 

 have written about a subject of which he knows next 

 to nothing. The " Mahwa," or rather " Mowra," 

 trees which abounds in the southern half of Hindo- 

 stan, has been known for ages past, and has 

 ofttimes been reported upon. It is true the leaves 

 contain a very considerable proportion of saccharine 

 matter, but, so far as we can learn, all the ex- 

 periments made up to the present have been un- 

 productive of satisfactory results, and the period is 

 certainly very remote when the " Mowra" will enter 

 into competition with eitlier the sugar cane or beet. 

 Our contemporary, the Produce Markets Review, 

 points out that Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, officiat- 

 ing Political Agent at Bhopawar and Commandant 

 of the Malwa Bheel corps, gave full particulars of 

 the trees some time since in the Indian A(iriciiltiirist. 

 That officer stated that probably not ' more than 

 forty trees could be planted to the acre and that yield 

 per tree appeared to vary from three to six kutcha 

 maunds, or about 120 to 240 lb. of flowers. If it 

 be true that the flowers contain half tlieir weight 

 in sugar, this would mean a yield of one to two 

 tons the acre. The weights given are of the flowers 

 that fall, for the natives do not appear to gather 

 them. There is all the difl'erence between these 

 figures and those of the Morninri Post, where a ton 

 of blossoms is spoken of as being yielded by each 

 tree, and a yield of 100 to 120 tons of sugar per 

 acre is also given as that which may be obtained 

 from the Mowra, Jlahwa, or Moola tree. Colonel 

 Miller, though he gave many particulars of the 

 uses of the flowers and fruit in the article named 

 above, made no mention of sugar being obtained 

 from the flowers, but stated that the juice had 

 " a strong and rather disagreeable smell, like that 

 of wild beasts, tigers, Ac". Mv, William Fox, i-,t.s,, 

 of the Laboratory, Great Tower Street, nl-io 

 writes fo say that the flowers' submitted to analysis 

 gave the following result; — "Honey, ilO'A per cent., 

 cane sugar, I'Oi pet cent. ; ash, 2'32 percent.! 

 cellulose, dc, i2'20 per cent. ; and water, 12'il 

 per cent, total, lOO'OO. No gi'ape sugar was pi'e- 

 sent." He adds : — " It will be impossible to inakd 

 ortlhiary or cane sugar from a substance yielding (he 

 above results, so that the cane or beetrobt siigar 

 industry can only be alYected to a very slifjlit ox- 

 tent, as the sugai' coiilained in the Mowra can only 

 bo utilised for browing or distilling purjioses. The 

 flowers. 1 may add, are all male flowers." .-Vftor 

 ihis, it may be expected we shall hear very little of 

 the "Mowra" as a sugar producing tree for soms 

 time to come — European Mail, 



