January i, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



SOI 



provei.1 that this section of the Sugar iiuestioii must 

 also be reganieil ;is disposed of. It therefore only 

 remains to consider the Louisiana t'ane Sugar pro- 

 duction, in order to arrive at a conclusion whether 

 the GO.DOi 1,000 people in the Vnited States can in 

 any way reckon on a supiily of home-grown Sugar, 

 or wether they will i\ol rather be compelled to 

 import the whole of the Sugar they require. A 

 few years before the Civil War broke out, the pro- 

 duction of Sugar in Louisiana increased at an important 

 rate, so that in IS'JO and l^Gl it was at the height 

 of prosperity. In those day.s the lAjuisiaua Sugar-plant- 

 ers—nicknamed the •• Slave I,ords"— were considered 

 to be the richest, most independent, and most to be 

 envied caste of tue American people. I'.ut an avenging 

 Nemesis has overtaken tlieni, and with a terrible 

 power. The former slave lord is tod.ay himself a 

 slave; and just as the slaves of those days h.ad no 

 hope of liberty, the Louisiana Planter now despairs 

 of freeing himself from his chains ; he works with a 

 millstone round his neck : he is the slave of the 

 commission merchant. If iu former days the Sugar- 

 planter wielded his slave-whip only under e.'iceptioual 

 circumstances, aud then mildly, the commission 

 merchant flourishes his moral lash with pitiless 

 cruelty. Of 1,100 planters iu Louisiana, at most 50 

 are able to exist, or. rather, to vegetate, without 

 advances from the commission merchant; the other 

 1,050. however, obtain advances under the most 

 oppressive comlitions, and in the most hutuiliathig 

 fashion, and must then pay 2.5 to 4.5 per cent interest. 

 Nominally the rate is less, but only nominally ! 

 The pay 8 per cent actual interest, and '2h per cent 

 commission ; 2:^ per cent for buying, 2.j per cent for | 

 selUng. Then come brokerage, uisurance, cooperage, j 

 weighing charges, and whatever else each lengthy 

 Charges Account includes. The contracts which must j 

 be entered into to obtain advances, and in which a i 

 mortgage is given on the whole plantation, with 

 everything npnn it moveable and stationary, dead 

 and ahve, .are usually so formed that the planter not oidy 

 loses all control over tho Sugar, but over the grow- 

 ing crops as well. Jlany planters worked up all their 

 Cane last season, retaining no s^d for a fresh crop ; 

 and numerous tields, formerly cultivated with Cane, 

 will this year be sown with rice. Thereby the planter 

 is rendered less dependent on the commission merch- 

 ant and on low .Sugar prices, but the extension of 

 rice-growing fearfvdiy aggravat(*s the ah-eady existing 

 malaria ; still he seems to prefer to fall a victim to 

 malarial fever rather than to the commission merch- 

 ant. Unless, therefore, some miracidous and prompt 

 intervention should prolong the existence of the 

 Louisiana Sugar-planter, this once so prosperous branch 

 of the I'nited Slates .Sugar industry must be 

 looketl upon a.s a relic of the past. Then it will only 

 remain for the (Jerman Fabricants to take steps to 

 secure the market of these 00,000.00<J people, ('uba 

 and Porto Kico resemble Louisiana, and their situation 

 is not much better. I^'t nobody suppose that this 

 sketch is exaggerate*! ; on the contrary, it does not 

 come np to the reality. The (ierman Sugar Fabricant 

 may, therefore, be of good hope, especially when he 

 recognises how vastly better is his position than that 

 of his unfortunate Cane Sugar brethren. — Piojuce 



PEPPKK VINE. 

 Colonel E. 13. Sladen, Commissioner of Aracan, 

 has very courteously jdaeed at our disposal the 

 following report fiom Captain C. A. Cresswell, De- 

 puty Commissioner, Sandovvay, on the results attend- 

 ing the experimental cultivation of tlie Pepper Vine, 

 in the neighbourhooil ' of the town of Sandowaj'. 

 Before making any remarks on the cultivation of 

 the pepper vine and its probable success, it would 

 be as well perhaps, as this is the fourth year of 

 the experiment, to give the actual position as re- 

 gards number and size of plants as actually counted 

 about the 14th February 1S.'<5, and which will be 

 entered as I8S4 and compared with those of 1883 

 counted in Jlarch I8.S4 and entered as 1883. ' 



DODXVSU. 



Blocks. 



Under one From one to Over two 

 Foot. two Feet. Feet. 



Block (1) ... 



Block (2) ... 



Block (3) ... 



Block (4) ... 



Total ... 3,485 2,342 172 4.52 

 * Of which 62 were over 4 feet. 

 Kv.M-xD.vvxf;. — 1884. 

 Under 1 ft. From 1 to 3 ft. From 2 to 4 ft. Above 4 f 



52 »236 



— ♦- 



A Poi.KE Force or Asrs. — A queer way of em- 

 ploying ants is reported by an English gentleman who 

 has been travelling through one of the provinces of 

 Obina. It appears, that, in many part.s of the pro- 

 vince of Canton, the orange-trees aro infested by 

 worms; and, to ritl themselves of these pests, the 

 natives bring ants into the orangeries from the neigh- 

 boring hills. The ants are trapped by holding the 

 mouth of a lard bladder to their nests. They are 

 then placed among the branches of the orange-trees, 

 where they form colonies ; and bamboo rods are laid 

 from tree to tree, to enable the ants to move 

 throughout the orangery.— Po^'if/ai' ScUnce Netes, 



188 73 30 28!) 



A gi-eat part of the Dodaung cultivation is now, I 

 find, not fitted for the pepper vine. The orginal 

 acreage taken up was 10.5 acres. The decrease in the 

 number of plants is due to the fact that in March 1884, 

 over 400 plants were destroyed by fire in Block 2, and 

 further from Blocks 1, 2, and 3. I have now throw'n out 

 about 40 acres as ground upon which the vine is not like- 

 ly to succeed. The grouiul will not be given up but 

 wdl be simply left to take care of itself; if the young 

 cuttings at present existing struggle up, they can be 

 looked after hereafter. The acreage, as at present 

 looked after by the two gardeners in Dodaung. is 62 acres 

 only, ami in April and May I .shall again inspect the 

 whole of this ground, and finally decide what is worth 

 keeping up. 



Block (4) I intend to devote .special attention to 

 as the ground is good and the trees are doing capitally 

 I have taken on to Block (4) at the cost of five 

 rupees, an old sugar-cane plantation of over 3 acres, 

 anil there I have put down one hundred cuttings of 

 tho liri/thnna Indira, most of which have struck 

 and will be ready for the young vines to be planted 

 at their feet next .lune. This is the method adopted 

 on the jMalabar coast, and is, I think, a far better 

 plan th.an planting the trees in a jungle, where the 

 ground is not of uniform quality,' and the vines of 

 course have to be spread over a large area. By this 

 method (the Jlalabar plan), about 225 trees can be 

 planted to an acre, and after four years an average 

 crop of one lb. a tree might be expected. The yield 

 in Sumatra is however very different; there an 'acre 

 of first class vines will yield from 1,161 pounds of 

 pepper. In Malabar the average yield from 1,000 plants 

 is only put down at 4.50 lb, or less than i lb. a tree. 

 From which is actually gathered from trees in Sandoway', 

 I think I am justified in putting down 1 lb. for each 

 tree. Seven pounds is looked upon in Malabar as a 

 very high yield for one tree. Seven pounds is some- 

 times realized from the old and nneared for trees 

 round Sandow.ay. The price at jiresent here is 

 l!l-12-0 a viss. \ valuable product in comiiaratively 

 small hulk, and oue which will bear the expences 

 of triinsport which paddy rarely does in the Sandoway 

 District. In Dodaung I expect from .50 to KJO trees 

 to fruit next ye;i.r, iu February l.H.sG. In Kyaung- 

 daung from 200 to 2.50 in Fehruary 1S8(!, or say 

 a total iu the two plantations of 300 trees and a 

 produce of say 300 lb. of pepper, and taking tho 



