THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1889. 
is a specimen of the talent with whioh the Brahmins 
knew how to popularise their religion and to graft 
it on the customs and traditions of the aboriginal 
races whioh they found in India. One word, however 
regarding the Tunkam, or restored palace of an old 
Madura queen, which now forms the residence of 
the Collector. The building was restored by a native 
and the result is something infinitely more tasteful 
than what has been produced in Tirumal Naick's 
place. Native taste has known how to blend 
colours and introduce ornamentations in perfect 
harmony with the old building, and the whole now 
forms a perfect gem. But our trip is now nearly 
over. From Madura we go by rail to Tanjore a 
journey of about 15 hours. There we spend a day 
in the old temple and then back to Madras, and heat, 
work and worry. But the eight weeks spent form a 
pleasant recollection to look back upon, and I wish 
that I may have made my description of them one 
half as pleasant as they were to me. Rekab. 
— Pioneer. 
« 
SISAL HEMP:— A PROFITABLE INDUSTRY- 
We are indebted to a correspondent who favours 
us as follows : — 
" You take such an interest in all agricultural 
matters that I send you a part of a letter from the 
present Administrator of Bahamas about Sisal Hemp. 
From all I hear it is the honest money-making thing 
of the present day, and the " dead and alive " West 
Indians will perhaps bring it to Ceylon as they did 
coffee." 
No, no, what a young Aberdonian brought to us 
from Jamaica was the West Indian plan of culti- 
vating coffee. Here is the extract about Sisal 
Hemp ;— 
" has embarked in the Sisal culture, 1,000 acres 
of pine forest near Adelaide, has commenced opera- 
tions, and a few days ago the agent of an English 
syndicate, I hear, offered him £2,000 for the land as 
it is now. He only paid 5s an acre for it. There is 
a rush from abroad and the price of land has gone up ; 
the Government will raise it from 5s to 10s per acre. 
The fibre extracted is pronounced unequalled and the 
demand will for years exceed very largely the sup- 
ply. There is no doubt that it is a safe investment. 
Our pineapple industry is so precarious ; do you 
know that since the application of Forester's ferti- 
lizers to the wasted lands of Eleuthera, the pine 
crops have been enormous and over'productive : the 
results ! Cuba has gone deeply into the cultivation 
and Florida is making rapid strides in that direction, 
so that Eleuthera will be handicapped terribly in 
this industry. Jamaica, Cuba and Florida are running 
us in the matter of oranges, and $3 per thousand can 
only be looked for. The disappointing feature about the 
Sisal Hemp culture is that the small holders of land, 
the negroes, cannot be awakened up ; the bounty 
offered by the Legislature of Is 2d per lb. of not less 
than 1 ton weight exported does not stimulate them : 
the consequence is that the outsiders, large and 
wealthy companies and individuals aroused by the 
advantages offered will absorb the land and suck the 
Treasury. The bounty is only for 5 years, and before 
the industry is started on gigantic lines and the yield 
be proportionate the act will expire never to be re- 
newed." 
«. 
A CINCHONA GROWERS' SYNDICATE. 
Baron G. von Rosenberg, one of the leading cinchona 
plantfrs in Southern India, is making a determined 
attempt to create a combination among cinchona 
growers in India, Java, and Oeylon, and, as a first step 
unvarde the accomplishment of this object, has issued 
an appeal to his fellow-planters throughout the Eastern 
world to join him in his crusade. Were it not for 
Baron Rosenberg's prominent position as a planter, 
and the probability that he has taken steps to ascertain 
the views o-f his colleagues in Southern India before 
initiating what looks more like a serious attempt at 
forming a ring than a mere occasional outpouring in 
the columns of a newspaper, his appeal would deserve 
less attention than it is sure to excite at present. 
In any case, the moment seems singularly in- 
opportune to set on foot fresh industrial combina- 
tions. Only a few weeks ago we had occasion to point 
out the failure of several attempts at the creation 
of rings, and, on the very day that the mail brought 
us Baron Rosenberg's appeal, news came of what 
looks like the beginning of the end of the iodine con- 
vention,which was started under much more satisfactory 
auspices than are at all likely to obtain in the case 
of a cinchona combination. Baron Rosenberg's appeal 
commencea by asserting that in British India and 
Java, and probably in Ceylon, there are still planters 
left to whom a remunerative market for cinchona is 
a matter of life or death. He does not count him- 
self among that number, as he grows barks equalling 
from 3 to 6J per cent of quinine sulphate, which, 
even at the present range of prices, are still worth 
shipping. Moreover, personally he is in a position 
to hold back, if need be, until such time as the poorer 
class barks which now swamp the market shall have 
ceased to come over. But he is anxious about those 
weaker brethren who only grow poor barks, and 
are now on the way to the 'orful dog6. Hence he 
chivalrously springs into the breach on their behalf 
and suggests the creation of a force strong enough to 
assume the control of the market. To Baron Rosen- 
berg's mind the operation seems rather a simple one, 
and if only his suggestions are adopted results will 
follow, " not at once, perhaps, but, by a cordial co- 
operation of the planters, in six months' time." But 
the first step is to sink imi uediate individual interest 
for the common good, as the formation of a ring is 
the only salvation of the planters. " Left alone," as 
the Baron graphically expresses it, " the planter be- 
comes a sort of bullock, doing his daily round, taking 
his bark and cropping his coffee without reference to 
the state of the market, and later on lamenting the loss." 
The proposed combination, it is said, will ouly 
comprise a few hundred (!) planters ; it will most 
certainly receive the cordial support of merchants, 
brokers, and even of the purchasers of bark, and 
everybody will benefit by a rise in prices. The con- 
sumer, it is true, is not included in this happy circle; 
but then we are told that even now, judging by the 
prices charged by retail druggists, a fall or rise in 
quinine makes no odds to him, and, moreover, he 
must help himself, because, for the producers, 
charity begins at home. Looking at the matter from 
Baron Rosenberg's standpoint, -we can only commend 
him for the public spirit with which he endeavours 
to improve his fellow-planters' position, but 
we are decidedly of opinion that this experiment at 
floating a combination which shall work upon a satis- 
factory basis will prove a disappointment, and is 
bound to fail as completely as, from the standpoint 
of public policy, it deserves to do. In the first place, 
the organiser of the would-be combination wishes to 
confine the ring to the planters of British India, Oeylon, 
and Java. The South American growers he treats as 
a negligeable factor in the situation, and in doing so 
we are inclined to believe that he commits a serious, 
if not a fatal, mistake. It may be true that no 
appreciable amounts of uncultivated bark can be 
placed in the market, even if the unit were to rise 
to four or six times its present value, but we are 
inclined to believe that any pronounced advance 
would quickly call forth important shipments of 
bark from the Bolivian plantations, and not im- 
probably also from the Central American forests, 
whence we obtained tuch immense quantities 
seven or eight years ago. Looking through our 
own reports of the bark sales held in London during 
the present year, we find that during the first seven 
months of 1889 over 200,000 lb. of cultivated Bolivian 
calisaya quills (that is not including flat yellow 
bark) have been sold here by public auction, nearly 
all of this bark having been quite recently imported, 
and averaging fully 4£ per cent., if not more, of qui- 
nine sulphate. This tact goes some way to show what 
