200 
THP TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [September 2, 1839. 
of it ; and although it is difficult to see how a 
bad bargain is to be remedied, still energetic efforts 
must be made to put things as far right as possible, 
if we are not to see accessions to those who have 
withdrawn their support from the Tea Fund. We 
have come to a nice state of things, when money 
voted for bringing our teas prominently before the 
French and other Continental peoples has resulted 
in subsidizing the liquor and barmaids of Messrs. 
Spiers & Pond and making a very secondary matter 
indeed of the tea itself. For my own part I can- 
not but regard the alliance of intoxicants and tea as 
a most unfortunate one and creditable to nobody, 
and although from being a teetotaler my opinion 
may be considered prejudiced, still I know of 
others outside of temperance circles who think 
with me, feel ashamed of the connection, and regard 
the arrangement as a decidedly bad one. 
Cacao is looking well, and in many places 
bearing well. There is however a feeling of dis- 
appointment with some that the fine blossoms have 
resulted in so little fruit. Many people seem to 
regard cacao as uncertain a product as most 
other tropical ones ; but when liberally treated — 
and therein I believe lies the true secret of cacao 
culture — it is as sure a stay as anything that can 
be found in the range of agriculture. It 
seems, however, to have a wonderful weakness 
for all kinds of pests, and at the present moment 
the borer is king. You hear of it all over the 
country, and the curious thing is that while some 
estates are sadly hampered by its presence, an ad- 
joining one may be completely free of it. Whoever 
has got it will act wisely in proclaiming a crusade 
against its very existence, for the ability it displays 
in worming into the cacao pods, and through that 
into your profits, is something remarkable. Espe- 
cially so in a wet season, like that we are now 
having ; for in the borer's tract the rain follows, 
and the quantity of damaged cacao which that 
produces tells against any kind of fair estimate. 
The medicinal pepper — cubebs I think it is called 
— which Dr Trimen mentioned in his last report as so 
hard to get and for which he has hunted so long has 
at last been secured by the Peradeniya Gardens, and 
the few plants which have come are doing well, and 
have taken kindly to their new home. By-and-by, I 
fancy, plants will be offered for sale to the public ; 
and if it is the real thing which has come, the 
wonderful fine price which this spice, from its 
scarcity, has been able to command will " sink at 
last into the common level of the world." If the 
general public are not grateful to Ceylon men for 
their unwearied efforts in reducing the price of all 
kinds of products which they touch they certainly 
ought to be. If we don't get thanks we have often 
little chance of getting ought else. What is wanted 
here, is to show the tropical product where there 
is a fair margin of profit to be got from its cul- 
tivation, and we at once tackle it, and cultivate so 
well, that the profit disappears. 
I am in a difficulty. A Buddhist priest has 
written me about a threshing-floor which is on 
a piece of land I bought the other day, and which 
he claims. He says : — " May I request of you to 
proceed to the land, inspect and make inquiries 
and give up my floor, for without it I am not 
able to thresh the corn of my field which I have 
done for ages past." Is this Eastern hyperbole, or 
can it bo that he alludes to his occupation in a 
former birth ? Peppeeoobn. 
AN EX-CEYLON PLANTER IN NATAL. 
Mr. Douglas C. Pease writes to us from Natal 
on June 18th :— 
" I trust you are still having prosperous times in 
Cnylou : tea no doubt is doing well for you in the 
low country, but I should be surprised if it held out 
so long as that upcountry. They talk here of the 
wretched Natal tea plantations, but 1 have not bad 
an opportunity of going into the interior yet and 
having a look at the tea grown down here. Judging 
from the growth of other trees, willows and wattles 
and other Australian kinds, I should say tea should 
grow well. Funds permitting I should like very much to 
start a garden here. Although the opinion as to 
adaptability of climate is very varied : as far as I 
can gather the rainfall is not too great, in fact 
short of a heavy S.-W. monsoon month's fall of rain. 
The average I think is about 25 inches per annum 
to 32 inches." [Far too little for tea. — Ed.] 
Cassia Lignea and Cinnamon. — If the pro- 
ducers of Ceylon cinnamon who complain of low 
and unremunerative prices could find consolation 
in the worse position of their competitors who 
have swamped the market with the inferior cin- 
namon known to commerce as " cassia lignea," 
they need only turn to the extract on another 
page headed " Low Prices of Produce." Cuprea, 
the other article mentioned, which at one 
time competed formidably with cinchona bark, is 
not even an inferior cinchona, but the bark of a 
plant belonging to a different order. 
Improving Land Naturally. — Nature s always 
slow. Only man is in a hurry. Whoever talks 
about improving land in the natural way talks 
nonsense. It took nature some thousands of 
years, more or less, to produce the virgin soil 
that the people of this country hav6 been ex- 
hausting. When it is exhausted what is to be done ? 
Nature will do it if given time enough, but it may take 
a few hundred or even thousand years to restore old 
conditions. Man can do this in muoh less time, and 
with mankind time is money. Therefore the agri- 
cultural way is cheaper, as well as better, than 
nature's way. By manuring the market gardener 
makes land far more productive than it was in its 
original virgin fertility In other words, man excels 
nature, which is not strange, as man has been im- 
proving on nature's works nearly ever since he has 
been ont his planet. — American Cultivator. 
Peoddcts othee than Tobacco grown in 
North Borneo were thus noticed in Mr. Pryer's 
Consular report : — 
To turn from tobacco, which demands such large 
capital and is so risky, to other cultivations more 
likely to receive the attention of individual planters, 
Liberian coffee is the product which is being most 
cultivated. Near Kudat, Mr. Christian's estate is 
looking exceedingly promising, the first planted trees 
now barely two years old are eroweded with berries 
and will be in bearing shortly; this estate is being con- 
siderably extended. Also at the back of Kudat 
several Hakka Chinese Christians who have settled 
there with their families have been planting Liberian 
coffee for some time past, subsisting in the meantime 
on the sale of bananas and pineapples which they 
have put in amongst the young coffee uniil it begins 
to grow up, these plantations also are being steadily 
increased. On the Benkoka River Mr. Leonards is 
commencing operations for a plantation whioh it 
is understood will be mainly of coffee, and on the 
Segulud River in Sandakan Bay the Planting and 
Trading Company's estate is coming on well, and 
new plants are being put in. In other parts of the 
territory oue or two small plantations now several 
years old are in free bearing. Pepper at Bundo is 
yielding well. The export for the year is estimated 
to have been about 300 piculs (about 6,000 dol. worth), 
about four times as much as for the previous year, 
and the cultivation is being extended. At Sandakan 
a pepper garden is being started, while up the Kina- 
batangan the East Borneo Company proposes pepper 
planting ou a .somewhat large soale under the direc- 
tion of Mr. Mitchelson, a well known Johore planter. 
The Planting and Trading Company's Manila hemp 
plantation is coming on well, and will soon be ready 
for the scutching machine, whioh however has not 
yet been erected. 
