24 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. TJuly i, 1889. 
buyers were the Auerbach Quinine Factory, the 
Amsterdam Quinine-works, and Messrs. Zimmer & Co., 
of Frankfort-ou-the-Main. — Chemist and Druggist. 
♦ 
MANDIOCA IN BEAZIL. 
A curious and somewhat anomalous complication 
has arisen in Pernambuco over an effort of the 
president of that province to restrict and control 
the trade in mandioca flour {farinha). The drouth 
in Ceara has created an extraordinary demand for 
this article, and as many ot the puor people there 
are in a famishing condition it must be had at 
any cost. Pernambuco being the nearest port where 
a considerable supply can be obtained, the ship- 
ments from that province have largely increased 
and the price has consequently rapidly advanced. 
This in turn has created much discontent among 
the poorer classes in Pernambuco and the charges 
that the farinha trade has fallen into the hands 
of speculators and monopolists has created a strong 
popular feeling against them. This sentiment 
culminated about the middle of last week in popular 
meetings to protest against the monopoly, and then 
in an order from the president prohibiting the 
exportation of the article. The Commercial As- 
sociation promptly protested against this arbitrary 
interference with commerce and petitioned the 
imperial government for relief, but to no effect. 
Aside from the suspension of an important branch 
of inter provincial trade, the order vitiates contracts 
and freight charters and inflicts much unneces- 
sary loss upon merchants and shippers. We are 
informed that the president has ample authority 
for the step taken ; in which case it is an authority 
that ought to be revoked at once. The power to 
suspend any branch of legitimate trade, especially 
between neighboring provinces, is eminently danger- 
ous, and especially so in the hands of unscru- 
pulous men. If the telegrams of the 30th are 
true — in which it is stated that the president of 
Pernambuco is buying farinha for account of the 
president of Ceard— then no further proof is needed 
as to the irregular and scandalous character of 
the whole proceeding. We are not in sympathy 
with the speculators who may be seeking to coin 
money from the starving refugees of Ceara, nor 
with the monopolists who combine to elevate 
prices in Pernambuco ; but surely there is some 
better and safer way to meet the emergency than 
through the exercise of autocratic power by an irre- 
sponsible provincial president 1— Rio News, April 1st. 
Corals. — Professor Dana has recently reviewed the 
so-called new evidence of Dr. Murray, Dr, Guppy, 
and others, which seemed to militate against 
Darwin's original theory of oceanic islands and 
coral reefs. Dr. Dana took the Hawaiian Islands 
as examples, and showed that they really are 
extinct volcanoes in different states of degradation. 
He concludes that neither Murray nor Guppy have 
brought forward any serious facts to disprove 
Darwin's original theory, or even to sot aside the 
facts in its favour. — Australasian. 
Coffee .Leaf DiSBASii. — Dr. Burck, Director of the 
Government Botanical Garden there, has delivered 
a lecture on the coffee leaf disease, which has 
wrought such havoc in Java. The lecturer, who has 
made tlio subject a special study, recommended, as 
an effective remedy against the plague, the sprinkling 
of young coffee plants in the nurseries with tobacco 
water. In his opinion high fences of trees around 
coffee estates would keep off winds laden with uisease 
germs. Cutting out plague spots from stricken trees 
and injecting a certain chemical solution into diseased 
leaves find favour with him. — Straits Times, 15th May. 
The Tea Merchants of Kyoto, Osaka, Shiga- 
ken and Mie-ken intend to establish a tea in- 
spection department at Kobe. To maintain this it 
is estimated will entail 14,000 yearly, which sum 
is to be raised by the imposition of a charge of 3g 
or 4 cents per package on the 150,000 packages 
of tea annually exported from Kobe. — Japan paper. 
Egyptian Cotton. — Two kinds of cotton are grown 
in Mysore, the Chic Uthee or indigenous variety, 
and the Dod E'hee or Egyptian variety. The 
staple of the latter is longer and stronger than the 
common variety and the shrub is mu:h hardier, 
requiring less water. We hear that the Durbar is 
about to offer certain prizes for the encouragement 
of the planting of the Egyptian variety. — Bangalore 
Spectator. 
The Amsterdam Quinine Works. — The annual 
mooting of shareholders in the above-named works 
was held in Amsterdam on Monday, April 29th, 
when a dividend for the year 1888 of 29f. per share 
of 500f . (or 5 4-5th per cent.) was declared. It was 
stated that during the year under view the works 
had turned out over 350,000 oz. of sulphate of 
quinine, which had found a satisfactory market, 
although the average profit had, of course, been 
but a small one. Permission was given to the 
board of directors to issue the remaining 100 shares 
(of 500f. each) for the purpose of taking up the 
manufacture of other chemical products in addi- 
tion to quinine salts. — Chemist and Druggist. 
Adulterated Tea of Reported English Origin. 
— Some time sioce the Duckerqie municipal laboratory 
seized in a local shop specimens of tea which prevtd 
to be adulterated. The eases had been procured from 
a Paris house, where samples were also seized, and 
submitted to Professor Riehe, of the College of Phar- 
macy, and another profefs'jr of the same institution. 
They have found the leaves to be naturally brown, but 
to have been dyed blush green and rolled up so as to 
resemble the sort known as gunpowder tea. A strange 
circumstance is that the soeciineus were found to con- 
tain small quantities of theiue. The leaves, apparently 
from a shrub of the Oamelia family, had been shorn 
so as to acquire the long ovoid form of genuine tea. 
But they are not tea leaves. A suspicious fact is the 
extreme cheapness of the price at which they were 
offered. The Paris firm admiited they had imported 
the goods in question, but denied having adulterated 
them in any way. They declared they procured them 
as they were direct from an English house at Canton, 
whose name has not transpired. It is likely something 
more will be heard about the affair. — Chemist and 
Druggist, April 27th. 
Fish Culture. — " An acre of water is worth 
two acres of land, and frequently much more." 
Such is the startling statement made in the The 
Times by that experienced pisciculturist Mr. William 
Burgess, of Malvern Wells. Mr. Burgess maintains, 
and he is in a position to know, that " the old 
system of breeding fish in ponds might be profit- 
ably revived, and that every piece of water, whether 
it be pond, lake, or stream, ought to be eulth ated 
by its owner in view of the cornmerical value of 
fish, whother for the purpose of local consumption 
or for increasing the live stock for sporting pur- 
poses." And Mr. Burgess backs his precept with 
very handsome practice, for he offers, in order to 
assist public bodies in replenishing depleted waters, 
to " receive and hatch out free of charge any 
quantity of ova next season, returning the fry when 
iiLkUiued from the capsules to their respective 
owners." It is to be hoped that this good seed 
will fall on fertile soil. Here is a chance surely 
for landowers whose property has been damaged 
by a surfeit of water, of plucking the flower. 
Safety from the nettle Danger, and of gathering a 
harvest which no vicissitudes of the seasons can 
affect.— Indian Planters' Gaxette. 
