526 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [1'ku. i, 1886. 



WVNAAD Plantehs' ASSOCIATION, Dec. 2ncl.— Colour of 

 Coffte.— Mrs. Jowitt the Hon. Secretary of the .special 

 committee submitted the following report:— At a meeting 

 held ou the Uth November the correspoudenoB ou the 

 subject of the colour of coffee was sifted and discussed. 

 The statements therein contained are conflicting and 

 the subject at the outset presents many problems 

 difficult of solution. The committee have called for 

 further figures which they hope may materially assist 

 them in their investigations and have decided on certain 

 experiments which they hope to carry out in the 

 course of the next two months. 



BmiiiKK IN 'West Africa.— According to a work by 

 Mr F T Valdez, formerly Arbitrator at Loanda, the 

 process of extracting caoutchouc or Indiarubber takes 

 place in June, July, and August, and is carried out by 

 slaves. An incision is made in the tree, and a vessel 

 placed under it, which, by means of a conductor, is filled 

 in about twenty-four hours. From this the caoutchouc 

 is poured into moulds of various forms, which have been 

 well smoked with the massic, or palm-tree, from 

 which the gum that gives the black colour, which 

 they consider indispensable, is procured. AVhen they 

 think that the Indiarubber is of suthcient consistency 

 they open the moulds.— Indh-ri/bber and Guttapercha 

 Jouriuil. 



iHE INTBODUCTION OF THE POTATO IN GeRMANY.—A 



corresiKindeut in an American paper writes :—" While 

 travelling in the upper Rhine countries, we found 

 ourselves obliged to pass the night and part of the 

 day in the little village of Offenburg, on the borders 

 of the Black Forest. While looking about in search 

 for the marvellous that is always to be found in 

 some form in these bonier villages, we came upon a 

 huge monument, upon the pedestal of which was the 

 figure of a man in the dress of the Elizabethan 

 courtiers. Our wonders increased as we siw loosely 

 piled upon the broad, projecting base, quantities of 

 Potatoes carved in stone. It was a monument to 

 Sir Francis Drake and the esculent tuber ! The 

 cavalier and discoverer holds extended in one hand 

 a Potato plant, and upon the four sides of the 

 pedestal are inscriptions expressing the gratitude of 

 a great people for the blessing that the Creator had 

 been pleased to bestow upon them in time of famine." 

 —Garileners' Chronicle. . ^ , ,tt c. » % 



FottESTs AND Moisture.— At the Boston (U. b. A.) 

 Society of Natural History meeting recently, the 

 subject of " The Influence of Forests upon the Atmo- 

 sphere" was presented by Dr. G. L. Goodale. 

 His conclusion, in brief, was that their influence is 

 very slight In regard to moisture their direct action 

 in throwing off. moisture is, he said, insignificant, but 

 their indirect action in holding back the water 

 which has saturated the soil in rainfall is very great. 

 Droughts and excessively dry atmosphere are consequent 

 upon an extensive cutting away of forest growths. 

 In the debate which followed it was stated, without 

 question or contradiction, that two broad conclusions 

 have been drawn heretofore concerning the desert 

 coasts of the south side of the Mediterranean Sea, 

 and that other causes besidcis the cutting off of Forests 

 must be recognised as having effected, in part or wholly, 

 the result now seen. One speaker thought it to be 

 a matter of conjecture whether there ever were 

 any forests there.— «n»dfHe;'s' Chronicle. 



Planting the Fokeshouks of a Lake.— I observe 

 that your correspondent J. M. W. asks for advice m 

 ulantiug up the foreshore of a lake. Willows are 

 not, perhaps, the best subjncts to plant in any 

 numbers- but a few trees of Salix albi might be 

 put down here and there. Round the immediate 

 edge I should give a prelerence to the coinnioli abler, 

 planted clo.se, more especially if cover for the purpose 

 of approaching wildfowl, &c., is one of the objects 

 in view Among tbes ■, or at the back of them, 

 Taxodiuni distichum will be found a valuable as 

 well as an ornamental tree. Theu,as the laud recedes 

 from the water's edge, Piniis rigida (pitch pme), 

 Abies (Tsuga) canadensis, Abies (Tsusa) Mertensiana 

 vel Albertiana, and Quercus palustris, are all ex- 

 oelleot varieties for your correspoiideiifs iiurpose, 



and should, as they develop, yield profitable timber 

 results. The common spruce adapts itself well to 

 bog-lands, provided they are not of the worst class. 

 If the 'ground is very full of stagnant wet. the sys- 

 tem of planting known as " buttage" — -i.e.^ in small 

 artificial mounds — will materially aid the result. 

 When thus protected during the first season, plants 

 are enabled to set up a healthy root action, and are 

 able to stand a much greater degree of wet than 

 would otherwise be the case. In Germany the practice 

 prevails to a very great extent. Open horizontal 

 drains, cut at intervals of 20 yds. to 40 yds. apart, 

 will, if there is any slope, contribute in a great 

 measure to the success of the plantation, and, if 

 practicable, should be made about twelve months 

 previous to planting. With regard to the rabbits, 

 wire netting is the only effectual protection that I 

 am acquainted with. I should be only too glad to 

 hear of some less costly substitute. Even with that, 

 in the case of forest nurseries, constant attention is 

 necessary to keep them completely out.— E. J. 0. B. 

 —Field. 



The Blackstone Tea Roller. — Ambagamuwa, 

 24th Dec— At the invitation of Mr. Barber, 



1 visited this estate with some friends with 

 a view to seeing the new " Spheroidal" 

 Roller at work. Mr. Scovell and others have 

 already noticed the excellence of tins machine 

 and have given details of the amount of work 

 done, to which I can certify. This roller, I believe, 

 will eclipse all the rollers at present in use, unless 

 Prater's roller hold its own; but even here 

 the Blackstone roller has a great^ advantage in 

 Mr. Barber's special invention or spheroid which 

 {^ives centrifugal motion to the tea and prevents 

 the roll from "balling," making a more equal roll 

 than any machine I have seen at work. The 

 work is perfect, and when the roll is taken from 

 the machine it requires almost no breaking but ia 

 ready for the sieve at once, the hard leaf, of 

 which there will always be a little, rejected or 

 rolled into little balls which can be pushed out 

 at once : from the roller to the sieve is but 2 or 

 8 minutes. The sieve, though of the simplest con- 

 struction, does its work equally well with the 

 roller and takes out 80 per cent to 40 per cent 

 of the pekoes. I have sampled the Blackstone 

 against some of the best teas in the island, and 

 their superiority in make is at once apparent. As 

 to quality, when infused they hold an equally high 

 position, as the sales will prove, I attribute the 

 beautiful Hnish of those teas entirely to the 

 machinery, and the ipiality of the tea is largely 

 due to the perfect sifting, and separation of the 

 fine leaf before fermentation and firing : in fact 

 the two machines should be worked together. I 

 would recommend every tea planter to visit Black- 

 stone estate. There are no costly or expensive 

 buildings to see, but apart from the intrinsic 

 value of the machinery there are many small 

 details in the manipulation of the tea from pluck- 

 ing to packing which will not fail to interest. 

 Mr. Barber is adopting, what I recommended some 

 time ago, a separate room with sirocco tor final 

 firing and packing. The advantages of Mr. Barber's 

 roller may be briefly summed up thus:— Simplicity, 

 small power required to drive the machine say 



2 or 8 horse-power, easy adjustment of pressure, 

 the spheroid speciality of the machine, ease 

 with which the machine can he charged and dis- 

 charged, and finally its great capacity for rapid and 

 perfect work, the outturn being equal to not less 

 than four rolls of 80 lb. each within the hour. 

 The sieve is so perfectly simple that any good 

 carpenter can make the whole in one day ; it is 

 the effective manner in which the roll is timslied 

 that makes the sieve so valuable— Jaues Irvine^ 



