and Magazine of the Ceylon Agricultural Society. 



Franco's Government to proceed to Angola and 

 inquire into the facts alleged by Mr Cadbury, 

 handed in his report a few days ago. I believe 

 that this report, the work of over a year, bears 

 out Mr Burtt's in many respects and contains 

 careful recommendations for the removal of such 

 abuses as still exist. It must not be thought, 

 however, that the path of reform is either easy 

 or obvious. The Portuguese law regulating the 

 recruiting of black labour works admirably in 

 Cape Verde, (Jabinda, and Mozambique ; it is 

 only in Angola that the same admirable law 

 fails of its effect through Jack of enforcement. 

 The failure may be explained partly by the fact 

 that pressure was occasionally found necessary 

 to induce the natives, a peculiarly low, back- 

 ward, and indolent race, to volunteer for work 

 in sufficient numbers ; hut it is also due to the 

 difficulty experienced by Portuguese officials in 

 controlling the action of recruiting agents over 

 an immense tract of country neither wholly 

 opened up nor effectively occupied. These diffi- 

 culties, however great, will no doubt be sur- 

 mounted ; for Angola supplies 90 percent. — i.e., 

 nearly 40,000— of the black labourers in the two 

 islands, and from Angola the greater part of the 

 labour must continue to come if the industry is 

 to maintain its prosperity. — London Times, 

 April 3. 



A PLANT THAT COUGHS. 



We have heard of carnivorous plants which 

 even eat mice ; there are laughing and weeping- 

 Mowers, but we have never heard of a coughing 

 plant. Nevertheless there is such a plant 

 which grows in the tropics. Its fruit resembles 

 the common bean. It is easily aroused to anger, 

 and what is yet more strange, has a horror of 

 all kinds of dust. As soon as a few grains fall 

 on the leaves the stomates or air cells, which 

 are the breathing organs, fill with the gas, puff 

 out and throw off the dust with a slight explo- 

 sion like the cough of a child with a cold in the 

 head. It is an ornamental plant. Ono can 

 hardly imagine the concert given by two or 

 three of these strange plants in a drawing-room, 

 where the passage of ladies sprinkles it with 

 rice powder. — Sydney Mail, March 31. 



PLANTATION RUBBER CONDITIONS. 



The system of selling plantation rubber ahead 

 under contract, which was introduced in Ceylon 

 last year, proved so satisfactory that no fewer 

 than sixteen planting companies are reported 

 to have contracted to deliver their 1909 product 

 of rubber to local merchants at a fixed price. 

 The planter therefore need have no concern 

 about fluctuations in the market for a year to 

 come; it is only necessary to deliver his rubber 

 to responsible houses, who undertake to pay a 

 stipulated price without regard to London or 

 New York market conditions. The fact that 

 such a system obtains is evidence that rubber 

 cultivation is regarded in the Far East as 

 having reached a firm stage. The producer 

 knows in advance about what his rubber will 

 cost him, and the buyer trusts his own judg- 

 ment as to the market for a year to come. It is 

 vyorth while to note that the contract price for 



plantation rubber (exclusive of scrap) laid down 

 at Colombo is equivalent to $1.20, gold, per 

 pound. This is about the prevailing price for 

 new Islands line Para, and it may be inferred 

 that the Colombo merchants count on something 

 like $1.30 as the ruling London price for plan- 

 tation grades. 



The fact that Ceylon rubber planters are able 

 to sell their crops to home merchants a year 

 ahead at fixed prices puts them on a better 

 plane than any agricultural interest elsewhere 

 known to us. — India Rubber World, April 1. 



THEY HAD RUBBER TO BURN. 



In the Mexican Herald (Feb. 13) is reported 

 a fire on the plantation of La Esperanza Rubber 

 Co., in the btate of Vera Cruz, in which was 

 destroyed " more than a ton of fine creamed 

 rubber and possibly as much scrap," the pro- 

 duct of the first year's tapping, which began in 

 October last. Most of the rubbor was in cases 

 ready for shipping. La Esperanza Company 

 began operations about ten years ago, the in- 

 corporators being residents of Providence, 

 Rhode Island. The manager, Carlton Hale, 

 had developed anew method for smoking rub- 

 ber after creaming, and it was in connection 

 with such work that the fire occurred. — India 

 Rubber World, April 1. 



SALE OF CORK TREE BARK AT 

 NUWARA ELIYA. 



A New Industky. 

 Miss Emily Vanderwall, of "Fern Bank," 

 Nuwara Eliya, has suddenly begun to reap 

 good money from the sale of the bark of a cork 

 tree growing on the Western boundary of her 

 land. The tree is about 30 years old and till 

 quite recently was only valued as an ornamen- 

 tal tree and an uncommon one as it is the only 

 tree of its kite) in Nuwara Eliya. It was planted 

 by the late Mr Fretz of Kandy, retired D.E., 

 from whom "Fern Bank" was purchased by Mr 

 Edwin Vanderwall. In December last the 

 Board of Improvement called upon Miss Van- 

 derwall to fell the tree when they began to lay 

 down the drains in Chapel Street. Miss Van- 

 derwall declined to do it and luckily too for the 

 bark is now selling at Rl per pound. Miss 

 Vanderwall was content to get 40 cents when 

 the buyer, a Sinhalese man from Galle, first 

 offered to buy a few pounds of it. The price 

 was then steadily raised and no less than R30 

 worth of bark was sold to him in two days. The 

 buyer keeps his counsel and does not state to 

 what use the bark is being put. It is believed 

 that a valuable medicinal oil is extracted from 

 it. Miss Vanderwall has been experimenting 

 with cuttings since the demand for the bark 

 was made, but has had no success. The tree has 

 not seeded. 



Highlands and Lowlands. — The yield for 

 March, 1909, of the Highlands and Lowlands 

 Para Rubber Co., Ltd., is 27,102 lb., making a 

 total of 76,26f lb. for the first three months of 

 this year compared with 33,266 lb, in 1908. 



