Miscellaneous. 



70 



[July, 1908. 



CEYLON AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



General Meeting. 

 Minutes of a General Meeting of the 

 Ceylon Agricultural Society held at the 

 Council Chamber at 12 noon on Monday 

 the 15th June, 1908. 



His Excellency Sir Henry McCallum 

 presided. 



There were also present :— Sir S. D. 

 Bandaranaike, Dr. J. C. Willis, the Hon. 

 Mr. John Ferguson, the Hon. Mr. F. C. 

 Loos, the Hon. Mr. S. C. Obeyesekere, 

 the Hon. Mr. A. Kanagasabai, Messrs. 

 A. H. Thomas, R. H. Lock, M. Kelway 

 Bamber, G. W. Sturgess, J. Harward, 



E. Cowan, P. Arunachalam, W. Dumi- 

 wille, L. W- A. de Soysa, F. Daniel, 



F. M. Mackwood, W. D. Baldwin, M. 

 Suppramaniam, T. Cockerill, Jas. Gibson, 

 H. J. Peiris, A. N. Galbraith. W. S. D. 

 Tudhope, A. E. Rajapakse. Dr. H. M. 

 Fernando, Rev. P. T. Cash, Capt- Curling 

 and Dr. E. Ludovici. 



Minutes of the General Meeting held 

 May 25th, 1907, were read and confirmed. 



The Secretary's Report for the year 

 1907-1908 was laid on the table and 

 adopted on the motion of the Hon. Mr. 

 Ferguson, seconded by Mr. Dunuwille. 



H. E. the Governor addressed the 

 meeting at length with reference to the 

 work of the Society as shown in the 

 Report, and indicated his own views as 

 to the lines on which it should develope. 



Dr. Willis read a paper by Mr. R. W. 

 Smith entitled " Alkali Soils and Water 

 Logging in Irrigated Lands." 



Mr. R. H. Lock read a paper on 

 "Beautiful Tropical Trees and their 

 Uses" by Mr. F. H. Macmillan. 



The meeting terminated with a hearty 

 vote of thanks—proposed by Mr. Fer- 

 guson—to H. E. the Governor for pre- 

 siding. 



(In the last number the date of meeting 

 was given in error as May 15th which 

 should read June 15th). 



C. DRIEBERG. 



Correspondence, 



PARA RUBBER IN THE GOLD 

 COAST. 



Abosso, Gold Coast, 

 West Africa, 30th April, 19C8. 

 Sir,— I enclose you some photos, of 

 Para (Hevea Braziliensis) on an estate 

 near "Axim" on the sea coast of the 

 Gold Coast. The estate is about seven 

 miles ;inland from Axim— "The Kost 

 Development Syndicate, Ltd." 



(1.) Is a road through the estate show- 

 ing the new clearing for rubber and 

 road fringed with plantains. 



(2.) Is some Para, 18 feet high and 16 

 months old. 



You may care to reproduce these 

 photos, in your most excellent Magazine, 

 and have my full permission to do so. 

 This country from the Coast inland 100 

 miles is ideal for Para in most parts, the 

 only difficulty is the labour; imported 

 labour would have to be used to work 

 with any cheapness. The local people 

 '' Fantis " are not only lazy and untrust- 

 worthy, but they work in the gold mines 

 at Tarquah and other places on this coast, 

 and can get higher wages than any 

 planter can pay. 



Down the coast further up round 

 'Accra' the capital and inland there 

 are Cocoa and Kola estates, nearly 

 all in the hands of natives, who either 

 sell to Europeans at Accra or ship home 

 themselves. The export of cocoa this 



year should reach a tremendous figure, 

 quite £250,000 worth, and the cocoa 

 is very fine. However, I hear of canker 

 appearing on the trees and no drastic 

 remedy being taken to remedy it like 

 Ceylon took— "the knife" and all the 

 canker burnt. The export of rubber 

 from here in 1906 was valued at £360,000, 

 nearly all "Landolphia" rubber, but it 

 is getting less and less every year uow, 

 and will continue to do so owing to the 

 ruthless way the natives continue to col- 

 lect it. I mentioned this in a previous 

 article to the "T A." last year— about 

 July number, I think. 



Yours faithfully, 



E. R. MURPHY. 



AGRICULTURAL BANK : TELIJJA- 

 WILA AGRICULTURAL 

 SOCIETY. 



Teliiiawila, 20th June, 1908. 



Sir, — I have the honour to state that 

 this Society distributed seed paddy to 

 136 persons of this korale for the present 

 yala harvest, at 5 per cent, in lieu of the 

 prevailing rate of interest recovered by 

 private lenders— 50 per cent. 



Rs. 350 was spent for the purpose. The 

 proceedure adopted was as follows : — 

 The Vidana Arachchies of the several 

 divisions, pursuant to an order from me 



