102 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. TAugust i, 1889. 
Past Toungoo through miles and miles of forest 
with mountain ranges on either hand in the dis- 
tance, and here and there a hamlet called a " town." 
Houses all wooden raised on piles, and many hand- 
somely carved and decorated, the lazy inhabitants 
allowing tlae jnngle to grow right up the door steps 
in many places. More temples than houses. Past 
several " cities" in which the striking object is always 
the huge golden temple surrounded by a troop of 
smaller ones, always on the most picturesque sites. 
The people, even the peasantry, _ all clad in silk, the 
women's garments more especially of the gayest 
colours, and both men and women always happy look- 
ing and ready for a laugh. Kyoukse district is the 
first in Upper Burma in which we saw any consider- 
able area of cultivation. The irrigation works appear 
to be complete and are said to be very ancient. The 
people are said to raise three crops of rice in the year 
off the same land, and certainly we saw the crop in all 
stages along the line, from that just sown to the 
stubble just cut. After three days' stay at Mandalay, 
the "barbaric magnificence" of which I will not at- 
tempt to describe, Mr. Walker and I set_ off by 
steamer down the Irrawaddy to see lands which were 
available for settlement. However on arriving at 
the place there was no one to show them to us, and 
although we saw hundreds of thousands of acres of land 
lying waste, tree-forest, grass, mountain and alluvial 
plains miles in extent, which would grow anything, 
" we did not catch that whale, brave boys," and beyond 
having a most interesting trip we did nothing. The 
long voyage down the river from Sagaing to Prome 
was a pleasure trip. Portions of the river remind 
one of the Rhine on a grand scale, others of the 
Lower-Ganges and Bramaputra churs. I cannot at- 
tempt to take up your space with descriptions of the 
scenery or the people, but must stick to my subject, 
viz., the capabilities of Burma for colonization by 
Beharis. On our return to Rangoon, I had an inter- 
view with the Chief Commissioner; and asked him 
to consider on what terms Government would offer 
grants of land to Behar planters who would not be 
afraid of dacoits ! and would settle in Upper Burma 
where the climate is more like North Behar than in 
the Lower Province, bringing with them any Beharis 
they could influence to accompany them. Sir Charles 
Crosthwaite promised to consider the matter. 
Ob the whole subject the conclusions I came to 
were:— (1) That it was desirable to see the country 
in the rains as well as the dry weather before settling 
on a location ; (2) That the terms at present 
offered by Government were not good enough to 
tempt Europeans ; (3) That nothing but large staples 
such as rice, wheat or perhaps cotton would pay a 
European planter in Burma for probably a generation 
to come; and (4) that the idea of growing indigo, tea, 
or tobacco there, or in fact anything requiring much 
labour may be put down as folly. 
I will conclude with an incident which amused me. 
On a road just outside Rangoon some Madras coolies 
were making a drain. I asked them what they were 
earning a month. They said about R16. I also found 
a Zurmi from Oudh amongst them who was loud in 
his praises of the country. It was about sunset and 
the " ganger" passed the word to stop work. My 
firends wiped the clay off their Jcodalis with their 
feet, went out into the middle of the road, hailed a 
ticca gharry, a nd drove h ome. 
COTTON "CULTIVATION IN CEYLON. 
Colombo, 20th June 1889. 
Dear Sir, — I am sorry to have to inform you 
that the new shoots growing up from the old shoots 
of my American cotton planted on Jack Tree Hill 
have been attacked by green bug. This attack, 
which is doubtless owing to the very wet weather 
for some time back.seems to indicate that in specially 
moist districts it is not expedient to leave the 
shoots of old plants in the ground through the 
monsoon, but to resow for each crop. The Egyptian 
and Tinnevelly cotton planted on Jack Tree Hill do 
not at present show any signH of being affected.— 
Yours faithfully, JAS. BLACKUTT. 
Ceylon Tea at Home.— A Londoner writes by last 
mail: — "I hope your tea prospects are good. The 
island as a whole seems to be producing a quantity 
of leaf, all sorts of wonderfully funny names being 
advertised, and packaees displayed in the shop win- 
dows. I like the tea." 
Shade Coffee.— Mr. Primrose writes to us 
from Coorc : — " I was pleased to see the notice re- 
garding the advantages of shade which appeared in 
the Observer. No one now ever plants coffee in 
these districts without it. and it is worth trying 
in Ceylon, especially at 3,000 feet or under." 
A Curious Coconut Tree. — A gentleman who was 
down at Matara the other day tells us of a curious 
coconut tree he observed on the roadside a few 
miles beyond Galle, which bore ordinary coconuts 
on the one side, and king-coconuts on the other ! 
Though he has been travelling about the island 
for a good many years he does not remember 
either seeing or hearing of a similar case before. 
Neither do we, and we should be glad to hear more 
about the history of this curious tree. 
A Tea Case.— Judgment wa^ given on Thursday, 
30th instant, at the Southwark County Court, in 
a case of considerable importance in the Tea trade. 
The defendants sought to establish that, although 
they had taken part delivery of certain Tea, and 
paid for such portion, they were at liberty to 
decline the remainder ; and further, that it was 
the custom of the trade to advance the duty on 
Tea, and forward it to the buyer, without the 
option of asking for the amount of duty in advance, 
in cases were it was considered desirable. Judg- 
ment for the plaintiffs with costs was given on all 
the issues. — Home Paper. 
Encouragement for Tea in America. — Mr. A. S. 
Stanton (Gow, Wilson & Stanton) writes to the 
London Chamber of Commerce Journal in respect 
of an extension of the use of tea : — 
The fact that in the United States nearly 90 
million pounds of tea are now annually consumed, 
whereas 20 years ago only 40 million pounds were 
consumed, speaks volumes, and this is only one out 
of many instances which might be cited. It is pro- 
bably only through individual enterprise that the 
successful introduction of tea into new markets can 
generally be accomplished: and it should not be 
forgotten by those trading with foreign countries that 
the unprecedented! y low price to which tea has fallen, 
furnishes an opportunity for its distribution whioh 
is more favourable than any that has previoasly oc- 
curred. 
Adaptation is considered necessary, as the 
Statist puts it : — 
Of course, the United Kingdom stands far and 
away at the head of tea-consuming countries, followed 
by the United States and Russia. Considering the 
population, a very large quantity is taken by the 
Australasian Colonies, and an appreciable amount by 
Canada. The consumption per head is largest in the 
Australasian Colonies and New Zealand, the latter 
taking the lead with 7 651b. per bead, followed by 
the Australian Colonies with 7'501b. per head. India 
is developing trade with Australasia, but still the 
bulk of the tea consumed even by those Colonies 
is derived from China. So far as the United King- 
dom is concerned, the expansion of consumption of 
British grown tea in the Australian Colonies will give 
us no direct benefit, as shipments will be mads 
direct from India and Ceylon still it will give us 
an indirect benefit in the employ of shipping, in- 
creasing the spending power of the planters who buy 
form the mother country, and giving dividends on 
English capital employed in the cultivation of tea in 
British possessions. In the United States we may 
expect a development of consumption of India and 
Ceylon growths provided f he planters suit the tastes of 
the market. In case the United States consumers " take 
to " such teas, the United Kingdom will secure a more 
direct benefit, as the tea will pass through this country. 
