Feb, I, 1886.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



535 



becomes scattereJ about the eoimtry, and on the sub- [ 

 siJence of the floods, and during the grass-buruing in 

 April, many are either caught alive, or their scorched j 

 boSies are found afterwards, and greitly relished by 

 the people. The flesh of the soft turtles is generally 

 eaten by the Burmese, aud may be good, though the 

 animals are carnivorous. The leiUpyenwon (Ohelonia j 

 virgata) is algivorous, and is the ' edible turtle "of 

 India. The boatmen on the rivers make it a practice, 

 when mooring at a spot, to hunt in the neighbouring 

 thickets for lizards, chameleons, snakes, aud similar 

 reptiles, with which they flavour the invariable dish 

 of boiled rice. Even lizards found <iead are esteemed 

 a great delicay when cooke<l. 



The iiurmese exhibit decided peculiarities in their 

 choice of comestibles. There is a small kind of beetle 

 whicli fabricates balls of clay and dung as a nidus for 

 its progeny, about the same size as tennis balls, and 

 buries them in ground where cattle are stalled. 

 These balls are eagerly sought after by *^be Hurmese 

 for the sake of the dainty grub contained within, 

 which they devour with uacommon relish. 



Another curiosity of the Hunuan lanler is a species 

 of ant, probably Formica smaragdiua, which exist in 

 large numbers, and constructs a nest i>f united leaves 

 placed up in trees. Tne Karens regard these auts as 

 unite a delicay, and eat them in curries, to which 

 their acid flavour gives a certain pitiuancy. 



The domesticition of bees receives no .attention, but 

 wild honey is gathered in large c|uantities by ascending 

 trees to the nests at night, ami smoking out the 

 owners. 



The eonsumptiou of thousands of salted hill rtas 

 every year by the Karens is, psrhaps, due less to a 

 natural taste for rat-tlesh than the force of circum- 

 stances, for these roilents swarm in such multitudes 

 at some seasons that the Karen must eat the rat, or 

 the rat will eat him.-O. G. W. J..— Field. 



experimental sale. The plants would not he killed 

 in the cutting of the twigs for barking, such prun- 

 ing would probably have the ert'ect of incrnasiiig 

 the number of shoots in each plant for tlie ne.st 

 season's iTop. — VT. S, Pbick, Asst. Settlement Oftieor, 

 Kevcnue Survey, .S. I\I, Country, Uharwar. — Iiidiftit 

 Ai/i'icitltifral Gazette. 



A PLANT KIUH IX TANNIX. 



In the August number of the Indian Agricultural 

 Gazette there is an article recommeuding the cult- 

 ivation in India of the Australian Wattle, as it 

 is said to yield •' the best material in the world 

 for the purpose of the tanner. There is on 

 this side of India a pLaut which, in the estimation 

 of the Indian tanner here, is superior in tauning 

 properties to all plants used in ludia for the pur- 

 pose. • In districts where Jtarathi is the X^ernacular, 

 the native name for the plant is Tarw.id. In (lis- 

 tricts where Canareese is spoken itis called Honawrigida 

 or simply Awrigida. Its botanical name is Cassia 

 Auricula ta.* 



Leather cured by the bark of this plant turns 

 out softer, is preserved better ami lasts longer thau 

 that cured by any other material, at any rate this 

 has been the invariable reply to oft repeated eu- 

 i|uiries I have made on this point. In the Bombay 

 Presidency, the habitat of the plant is chiefly the 

 open treeless- districts. It grows there wild in every 

 variety of soil, from the richest to the poorest, and 

 in any situation, hill, dale or plain. It Is a har<ly 

 shrub of quick growth, and if cultivated to the 

 extent of simply giving up space to it, probably 

 neither Kuropeau planter nor Indian ryot need wait 

 for the introduction into ludia of the Australian 

 Wattles for a good investment in a tannin proiluc- 

 ing plant. Whether the cultivation of this plant 

 would be a paying iirvestment or not might be tried 

 by the government, through the Forest Department. 

 The cheapest way to do this would be to .set apart 

 a few acres in waste ground, in the open country 

 for the growth of this shrub alone, all other shrubs 

 in these area.s btiog destroyed. Self-sowing wovdd 

 do the rest in multiplying the plants. After three 

 ycArs the shrubs would probably be in sufTicient 

 nnmb>TS and of growth sufliciently large to yield 

 enough bark to place ' in the local markets for an 



~ » It is pretty common in C«ylon, but has never, we 

 believe, been cultivated. A trial should be made.— 

 Ed. 



BURMESE RICE MEASURES AND RICE 

 STATISTICS. 



[There is much interesting information in this 

 article, and amongst other items the rate of pro- 

 duction in Burma, viz. 1,60L) lb. of padtly per 

 acre, say about 1,000 lb. of clean rice. — En.] 



The necessity for compulsory action on the part of 

 the i^xecutive for unifying the various stauilards 

 used in Burma in connection with the Trade in 

 Rice, will be acknowledged when the inconvenience 

 occasioned by the great diver.^ity that now prevails 

 is fully e\[>lained. There ar(^ no legal weights atul 

 measures in the country other than those of luilia, 

 which have not been adopted and are not recog- 

 nized as current anywhere in the I'rovince. Kice 

 being the staple of Burma, the attention of the 

 local authorities wouKl appear to have been first 

 directed towards regulating the capacity of the 

 '• basket" which here scrve<l the purposes of the 

 English bushel in the grain market. Rules were 

 prescribed fixing the size of this measure, which 

 was expected to secure uniformity from Prome to 

 Tavoy and Akayab to Shwegyn. These regulations 

 were, however, more honored in the breach thau the 

 observance, and the outcome is confusion worse con- 

 founded. The " basket" varies in different places, 

 aud different baskets obtain in the same place at 

 tie same time. The last state in this respect is, 

 in fact, worse than the first. But so long as the 

 inconvenieuce did not affect Governmeut interests, 

 the uecesssity for legislative action did not ap])ear 

 imperative. But now that the .State Hallways fiud 

 the dithculty of the dift'ereuce in stauilards in their 

 Traftic working, inquiries are instituted with view of 

 definite and final settlement. The importance of 

 the vast interests involved may be iuferred from 

 the fact that there are now over 83 millions of 

 acres uudcr rice in the I'rovince, aud that this 

 paddy-laad is more than 88 per cent of the cult- 

 ivated revenue paying area, which is ste.adily in- 

 creasing at the rate of 100,000 acres per annum. 

 The total yield of these rice lands of British Burma 

 is, according to the Administration Report for 1883-84, 

 in an average year, about 2,615,930 tons of paddy, 

 equal to 1,933,783 tons of cargo-rice. The total 

 requirements of the Province for homo cousumption 

 having been estimated at 91/,000 tons leave a 

 balance of 98>,0()0 tons available for export. It may, 

 therefore, be safely laid down as the rule for ordinary 

 year.s, that, a-half of the whole crop is the export- 

 aVile surplus. But, as under exceptional conditions, 

 the export of rice has been known to reach nearly 

 1,100,000 tons in a single year — 1832, the necessity 

 of controlling such a large trade by a commercial 

 basis or fixed unit of measure will be now obvious, 

 particularly as there is a constant and preferential 

 demand for Barman rice in the markets of tho world. 

 Britisli Burma is practically able to export as much 

 rice as all the other rice exporting countries in the 

 East together, aud it is worthy of note that Saigon 

 and Bangkok rice fetches in Europe Z."! per cent 

 less than Burma rice. Furthermore, coinparati\-,'ly 

 very little of the Bengal, Saigon, and Bangkok rice 

 goes to Europe, while nearly all, certainly upwards 

 of three-fourths, of the Barman rice is shipped to 

 European markets. A surprising featur<? in these 

 comparisons is the fact that the rice exports of 

 Bengal show a tendency to decrease rather than in- 

 crease. Saigon has only since 1881 commenced to 

 export rice to Europe, wbicli accounts for France 



