Janiury I, i8S6.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



■173 



THE COLONY OF NAT.VL. 



TO THK EDlTOn OK THE " ACSTKALASIAN'." 



Sir, — Mr. Litton complaius of my strictures being 

 aucalled for. I respectfully ask Mr. Litton for an 

 explicit reply to the following questions: — 



* » « » 



Second. — Have you ever drank a cup of roflfee made 

 from Natal-grown berries? If so, how does it compare 

 with the Java or Ceylon article V 



Thinl. — Can you certify to the fact that a single 

 hag of Natal-grown coffee, or 20 lb. weight collect- 

 ively of nutmegs, mace, cloves, cinnamon, cassia or 

 pimento, also the product of that colony, have been 

 at any time exported thence? — P. L. 



SUGAR FROM THE DATE PALM. 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE "AUSTRALASIAN." 



Sir, — -I was must amused by a paragraph in the 

 .scientific column of your paper, mentioning as a new 

 discovery that sugar was to be obtained from the 

 date palm. 



It is now quite forty-three years since I, then a 

 lad studying engineering, was gaining practical ex- 

 perience and at the same time acting as inspector of 

 works on a large sugar factory in course of erection 

 in the Jessore Zillah in Lower Bengal, during which 

 time I also learned something of sugar work, and I 

 cau safely- say that most of the sugar made in that 

 part of Jessore and adjoining zillahs was from the 

 date palm, the sugar being quite equal to cane sugar, 

 the only objection to the use of palm-juice boiug 

 that the molasses was at that time considered unfit 

 for <listillation, therefore cane was preferred as it 

 gave a bettt^r return. 



For how many hundreds of years the date-sugar 

 industry of Lower Bengal had been in existence, I. 

 being, as I .said, a lad, never thought of inquiring ; 

 I only know that it was no novelty then, so far as 

 my m.mory serves.— I am, &c., Old QuOi Hv. 



COFFEE LEAF DISEASE. 



TO THE EUirOR Of THE - MADRAS MAIL." 



Sir. — With reference to your article on Htmileia 

 vaatatru-, let me say that the various members of 

 tlie vegetable kingdom— like those of the animal 

 kingdom — are, in a minor degree of course, endowed 

 by nature with certain functions, upon the due ex- 

 ercise of which the health and (eventually) the life 

 of plants depend. So long as (what man chooses to 

 term) nature holds the reins, these functions will 

 ever be exercised in their proper order and degree. 

 When man, however, steps in and— for the fiuther- 

 ance of some special purpose — takes upon himself to 

 control or arrest any one of these functions, he there- 

 by rnns the risk of ultimately causing great mischief 

 to the health of the plant unless he possesses a most 

 thorough, intimate; acquaint.ince with all the laws of 

 plant lito. 



Suppose a man, in the exercise of his own per- 

 sonal functions, devotes his entire energy to the ex- 

 clu.sive exercise of (say) the function of brain power. 

 Unless that man be careful to preserve a balance 

 between this and his other functions, Natiu-e will 

 sooner or later remonstrate, aud, if the remonstrance 

 be unheeded, will directly interfere to prevent such 

 abuse, and'to restore the deranged balance of functional 

 energy. This iutervention will probably be manifested 

 in the form of di.seaso (in the case in question of 

 mental disease probably) ; and that man will continue 

 prostrated thereby until the disturbed balance of func- 

 tional energies be restored to their normal state. 

 Inspired truth teaches us that if one member ofonr 

 body sulfors all t.ur nif ml>ers fuffcr with it. In like 

 manner, if one function suffer from abuse or excess- 

 ive exercise, all the functions will suffer because 

 Nature's even balance will be upset. One of the 

 main functions of plant life is that of reproducing its 

 kind, and this fiuiction the coffee-bu«h. with its 

 clusters of bright berries, performs very freely at 

 Xature's o(¥n commaud. But niau comes along, and 

 GO 



; virtually says to the unfortunate coffee bush, " Let 



I all your functions be held in abeyance, as far as 



possible, to the furtherance of the utmost possible 



exercise of your function of seed-bearing, and to that 



end off with all that reduudant foliage which, if 



retained, would, whilst temlingto preserve the balance 



of the normal exercise of all your healthy functions 



greatly curtail my bumper crops ! Nature is. on the, 



whole, very patitnt and long-snifering under abuse, 



but sooner or later she is bound to protest. At last 



Nature — addressing these who perhaps have not ears 



to hear her silent warning — indicates that the function 



of seed-bearing having been forced to the highest 



possible pitch, to the exclusion more or less of the 



exercise of other functions, man must either allow the 



exhausted tree to revert to its normal condition, and 



rest, or otherwise Nature will be under the necessity 



of suspending the functions of the ti'ee (which have 



all sutiered} and compel an enforced period of rest 



until the balance of functional energies be restored to 



the normal condition. Hence leaf disease and red 



spider, which are but symptoms of the disease of 



functional derangement and exhaustion. You, sir, 



rightly remark that coffee growu under shade enjoyed 



iniinui.ily from leaf disease. And why? Because under 



shade the coffee hush preserves its functions in a 



normal condition for a longer period of time, its en- 



vironn.rut being unfavourable to excessive forcing on 



any one function. A\'hen I hear of Ceylon tea estates 



yielding 1,000 lb. of tea per acre, I know that means 



a stes'^y advance towards functional exhaustion and 



derangement, and that by and bye red spider will 



denote the arresting of the functions of the exhausted 



tea bushes. Novice. 



THE USES OF COTTON-SEED IN AMERICA. 

 It is well known that Cotton-seed is, as an arti- 

 I clc of commerce, a comparatively modern iutro- 

 I duction. Not many years since the seed, which 

 ; was produced in such abimdance in the Cotton 

 I plantations of America was, not only a waste proiiuct, 

 ' but one which the growers scarcely knew what to 

 do with. Of late years the oil has been expressed 

 in continually increasing quantities, and applied to 

 a variety of useful piu-poses, not the least important 

 of which is its substitution for Olive oil, for Cotton- 

 seed is now purified so carefully that the result 

 is a clear bright limpid oil, equal in appearance if 

 not in taste to the best oil obtained from Olives. 

 Jlills for the expression of Cotton-seed oil have been 

 erected iu America in increa.sing numbers of late 

 years. In 1870 there were only twenty-six mills, and 

 iu ItfSO forty-seven, six of them iu New Orleans, 

 At the present time these mills are scattered through- 

 out the South in all the important Cotton centres 

 on tho rivers and on the railways, and number 108 

 in all. The average yield of seed is about 3h lb. 

 to every iround of lint. Tho amount of seed annu.ally 

 crushed in the United States averages about 4l'(),0<i0 

 tons, a ton of Cotton-seed yields 35 gals, of crude 

 oil, 22 lb. of cotton, 750 lb. of cake of average 

 value of 19 dols., making the total v.alue of the 

 Cotton-seed product of the South S.ODO.DOO dols., or 

 3 per cent of that of the Cotton crop. 



Cotton-seed cake — the residue of the seed after the 

 expression of the oil — is used chielly for stock feed- 

 ing and for fcrtili2ing purposes for this purpose; 

 it is generally ground into a meal known as Cotton- 

 seed meal. Blost of that used for feeding purposes 

 is shipped to this country, where it is extensively 

 used for fattening stock; it is also said to be a 

 spleudid food for cows, causing a rich and phintiful 

 flow of milk. The cake is shipped from America 

 iu sacks containing 2U0 lb. each; it is of a rich 

 golden colour when fresh, and has a sweet, nutty, 

 oleaginous taste. It is a very valuable fertilizer for a 

 large number of plants. 



The oil from tiro Cotton seeds has been applied 

 to a variety of uses in America, such as tho manu- 

 facture of the finer kinds of so.ap, also for mixiug 

 with paint, and for lubricating purposes ; it, however. 



