TEH AGRICULT 



URAL JOURNAL. 



Yaryan accomplishes in twelve minutes 

 what in other evaporators takes from two 

 to three hours. The cleaning of most 

 evaporators is a big business, but that of 

 the Yaryan is simple and easy. The dis- 

 tillery was at work, and none of its pro- 

 duce, teetotallers will be pleased to heai", 

 was intended for sale as drinkable spirits. 

 The demand for methylated spirits at the 

 present moment is exceptional, and all the 

 spirit from the still is made nauseous 

 with the officially prescribed proportion 

 of naphtha before leaving the premises. 



Sugar Prospects. 



" How about the prospects for sugar ? " 



"The prospects are fair. The golden 

 days of the industry were at the end of 

 the seventies, when sugar was £28 per 

 ton, and the rainfall was good, and the 

 wages were only half what they now are." 



" Will it be possible, in the early 

 future, to dispense with the protective 

 duty ?" 



" No ; not while Continental nations 

 protect the beet industry with bounties. 

 Sugar planters of late years have had a 

 good many drawbacks to contend against. 

 At present there is a scramble for in- 

 dentured coolies. The Board cannot 

 supply them quick enough. I am want- 

 ing forty or fifty extra hands for rough 

 labour, and I have tried to get kafirs at 

 30s. per month, but without success. 

 Formerly, as you know, the Colony paid 

 a third of the expenses connected in the 

 importation of coolies. That has ended. 

 Mauritius still pays half the expenses. 

 We planters get the coolies raw, and we 

 train them, and the Colony gets the 

 trained labour for nothing. Then the 

 average rainfall is decreasing, and we 

 have just had two years of drought. Last 

 year we happily had a very fair rainfall. 

 Then we have had locusts during four 

 years, doing immense injury, and causing 

 heavy direct expenditure. When they 

 first appeared I had 70 men continually 

 fighting them for three months. Fortu- 

 nately I can now, with arsenic and 

 treacle, do more effective work with eight 

 men. Then there were the rinderpest 

 losses, but rinderpest I am beginning to 

 regard as a blessing in disguise, for it 

 jjrompted me to go in for tram lines, 

 which will prove much more economical 

 than ox transport. I have about five miles I 



of tramway. The grading of the line is 

 done by farm hands, who have been 

 taught by my son. Our worst grades are 

 1 in 30. The cost may be taken between 

 £400 and £500 per mile, including rolling 

 stock. The loaded cars come from any 

 part of the estate to within a mile of the 

 mill by gravitation ; the remainder of the 

 distance is an easy incline. For hauling 

 the trucks I chiefly use mules — price 

 £36." 



Cultivation. 



The whole of the estate is marked off 

 into acre divisions by the planting of a 

 banana tree at points 70 square yards apart. 

 This ingenious system of beaconing is for 

 the purpose of facilitating the setting out 

 of piecework, and so far as possible all is 

 piecework on a sugar estate. Wherever 

 practicable all land is ploughed. On the 

 coast, generally, the hoe is preferred, 

 owing, probably, to the influence of 

 Mauritian systems. Ploughing entails 

 somewhat more supervision, but Mr. 

 Wilkinson holds it to be considerably 

 cheaper : in Mauritius the labour costs 

 much less than in Natal. Neai-ly all the 

 ploughing is done with hillside ploughs 

 — the " Oliver," an American, is the make 

 preferred by Mr. Wilkinson. 



System of Ploughing. 



The system of ploughing at Ottawa is 

 remarkable, and, so far as I know, quite 

 exceptional on the coast in Natal. 



All cane rows are laid out on the level, 

 so that on cultivating between the rows 

 with a small American plough or scarifier, 

 the horses walk on the level, and do not 

 go up and down hill. In mellow land 

 the loose soil, therefore, does not wash 

 down, but rests against the cane stools. 

 On the hillsides a furrow is first laid off 

 through the middle of the field by flags 

 placed by clinometer, and rows are drawn 

 parallel from that either way. If the 

 lines are getting out of level another level 

 line is run. This plan enables the culti- 

 vation of hillsides to be carried on with 

 little labour. 



Peas and Beans. 



In peas and beans, both for their various 

 direct returns and for what they put into 

 the soil, Mr. Wilkinson is a great believer. 

 They enrich the land by their roots with 

 the nitrogen they collect fj'om the air, 



