FEti, 1, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRlCVLTUmST, 



MS* 



year." There are records also of heavy rains in 

 17S5 and 17Sii; of Hoods in 1815 when nearly the 

 whole aspect of the old parishes of St. David and 

 St. Georges were changed and breakaways and ravines 

 formed which remain to the present day; of heavy 

 rains in 133'J followed by severe drought in 1S40 on 

 the nortbside; of floods again in 1841 when they 

 continued without intermission for nearly a week. 

 In 1S44 there were very heavy rains throughout the 

 island which were repeated in Ii*48 and continued 

 for nearly three weeks. The May rains of ISUJ lasted 

 for nearly two weeks. In 1S67 there were Hoods in 

 the Xorth-estern parishes. Heavy rains occured from 

 Octo'uer to the end of December li?7(). The rainfall 

 for Manchester for these three months amounted . 

 62'5 inches and at Kath to 885 inches. 



In 1^7^i there was a severe drought In the northoni 

 portion of the Island which retardeil the growth Bf 

 caucs. succeeded soon after by heavy and continuous 

 raiu». The floods of October lt>7!', were the last of 

 a general character which we have to record and 

 these have been succeeded, as we aro too painfully 

 aware, by five years of comparative drought. 



In spite of the present drought uuiier which the 

 country is suffering. It would be rash to assert that 

 the rainfall is actually and systematically decreasing 

 at a large rate over th» whole Island. I\[r Maxwell 

 Hall, however, is forced to the conclusion that the 

 rainfall in Jamaica must have been greater in former 

 times than now, but attributes this ■' to a change 

 probably systematic and periodic." If wo could take 

 periods of say twenty, fifty, one hundred or even 

 two hundred years, and tabulate carefully the amount 

 of rainfall deposited in each, we might then arrive 

 at a fairly definite conclusion whether the rainfall 

 is steadily decreasing or not. In the absence, however. 

 of such returns, the wisest and most rational course, 

 for the present at leait, is to leave the question an 

 open one. This, however, does not touch the inquiry 

 whether the rains are as regular or as fretjuent as 

 they previously were ; or whether the influence of 

 man in denuding the land of forest has not brought 

 about a failure of the waters in our streams and 

 rivers and produced such local changes in our climate 

 as might lead to aridity and drought. 



[.iViid then Mr. Morris proceeds, in the usual style, 

 to show the influence of forest on rainfall. In Ceylon 

 denudation has not lessened rainfall, ;ind we suspect 

 the same may be said of Jamaica. Floods and droughts 

 occur in all tropic lauds, and rainfall depends on mon- 

 soons and mountains,— Ed.] 



RKTfK.S OK La.VI) in IUE HANDS OK GOVEHNMENT. AS 

 (IIVES IS THE Ua.NIIIIOOK OF JAMAICA 18*1-85, p. 122. 



Government 

 Government Land imder 



Land Lease to vari- Unpatented 

 UiHK'cupied. ous Versons. Laud. Total. 



li7,ii4S^. I:.',!K)8 26,980 107,536A 



In a note by General i^lann, Director of -Publis 

 Works and ?>urveyor-Geueral. it is mentioned that 

 '* the lauds heM b^' (.Jovernment are almost exclusively 

 under the folloning three heads: — 1st. I'npatented 

 Lands: 2nd. Lands forfeited to the Govcrniueut for 

 non-payment of tjuit Kents, and 3rd, Lands recovered 

 from Sjcptatters under the powers of the District Court 

 Laws. .... The last class of laniis are 

 only held by Government for seven years, after which 

 they are sold, if not claimed before that by the rightful 

 owner." The extent of land, both iu private hands ] 

 and iu those of Government corcred h/ fonntf is , 

 estimated a^bout one-fourth the totiilareaof the Iiiland. 

 In other words three-fourths of tht- country has already 

 been deiuided of forests; and the work of tienudation is 

 being carried on at the rate of some 15,000 acres to 

 20.000 (30.(iOij according to the Crown Siirveyort per 1 

 annum chiefly for the purpose of establishing negro 

 provision grounds. 1 



DON'T DIE IN THE HOUSE. 

 "Hough oil Hats" clears out rats, mice, beettles. 

 roaches, bed-bugs, flies, ants, insects, moles, chipmunks, | 

 gophers. yy. E. Smith & Co., Madras, Sole Agent«, 



DECAY OF THE INDUN SILK TEADE. 



The Pioneer iu a recent issue contained an article 

 on this subject, the writer of which commences by 

 showing, that, though thi're is a market in India for 

 ■he cheap filatures produced by tho native method, 

 the large companies which work to supply the Europ- 

 ean market catmot compete with China. He explams 

 the reason for this, as follows : — 



The difference between Indian and Chinese silk 

 admits of a very simple statement. Silk yarn loses 

 much of its weight in the process of dyeing, and of 

 course the foreign manufacturer will turn by preference 

 to that kind of silk which loses least. Now if we take 

 the produce of tho worm Jbat feeds on the mulberry — 

 the species which created tho old historic silk industry 

 of Bengal — a pouud of Indian yarn yields lOi ounces 

 after dyeing, but a pouud of Chinese yarn yields Hi 

 ounces : the difference is therefore 6 per cent in favour 

 of the latter, and iu point of strength also the superi- 

 ority rests with the Chinese product. If we leave 

 the mulberry silkworm and tqke the multivoltine tusser, 

 which is found wild iu many parts of India, and used 

 to be reared extensively on trees iu the open air in 

 Chota Nagpur niid other hill tracts of Bengal, as it is 

 still reared in the Central Provinces, which abound 

 in the hill and jungle that it most affects, a comparison 

 of Indian tusser and China tusser is again to the 

 disadvantage of the former. The Indian yarn retiu'ns 

 half an ounce less after dyeing, and is thus 3 per cent 

 to the bad ; but its deficiency in strength is a more 

 serious matter. Every silk-weaver knows how much 

 the lustre of his fabric— the quality whicli gives it 

 attractiveness in the eyes of the customer and enhances 

 its price in the trade — depends upon the natural 

 strength of the fibre. The beautiful sheen of sUk is 

 altogether an effect of nature ; it comes of the light 

 glancing along the straight lines of thu fibres which 

 lie side by side and compose the thread. Twist the 

 fibres, and you destroy their even straightness, and 

 the lustre disappears. But if the fibres are weak they 

 must be twisted, or the thread will not be strong euougii 

 for weaving. Now this is the case with Indian tusser, 

 and hence a deficiency of lustre in the woven fabiic, 

 and a depreciation of 3 or 4 per cent in its value 

 when compared with the more brilliant Clhinese. Again, 

 this same want of strength shuts Indian tusser out 

 of one-halt of its market. The thread is unfitted for 

 setting in the loom lengthwise ; it can only be used for 

 weaving across the breadth of the piece, and thus 

 the Kuropean weaver who works with Indian tusser 

 has to choose some stronger silk for the groundwork 

 of bis web. 



There are some of the reasons whicli account for 

 the decline of the Bengal silk industry .and the dimiiii.sh- 

 ing export of Indian silk generally. We are speaking 

 now of what is technically known as (/(/vk™ silk, that 

 is, silk-yarn made by reeling the silk off the cocoon. 

 It is a process in which machinery has no part, depend- 

 ing entirely upon the silkworm's work in the first 

 instance, and next upou the delicacy of the human 

 fingers that manipulate the fibres. A machine that 

 could do this work would be worth a fortune, and 

 indeed it is not likely that the problem of finding a 

 substitute for young women's fingers will much longer 

 continue to bafHo the inventiveness of the age. 

 » » # 



The fault of the Indian silkworm is that in spinnng 

 his fibre he never puts in a sutUciency of "bone." "Bone" 

 means, in the language of the trade, tliat hardness 

 and firmne.'is in the fibre which enables it to keep its 

 even roundness through all the trials to which it is 

 subjected in dyeing, combing, and weaving. If not 

 duly fortified with "bone" the thread gets frayed 

 at the edges, and becomes "fio.ssy," and llossiness is a 

 quality abhorred by the weaver. It is little differences 

 like this which affect the prosperity of whole industries. 

 The fortuues of the largest silk manufacturer in England 

 have been built on a minute improvement in the 

 jjrocess of combing, and the fortunes of Indian silk 

 would rerive if its fibre could by aiiy means be harden- 



