February i, 1890. | THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 543 
difficulty was connected with labour, and that was 
not insuperable. But illioit chenaing ought to be 
checked. Palu alone could supply twice the 
demand About 12 sp eies of.the trees named by 
the Commit ee would bear removal, at the rate 
of 40 trees per f.nnum (with rest every 3rd year) 
the forests themselves being benefitted thereby. 
"A requisition which would ruin the forests of 
another Province would (happily) be scaroely 
noticed here." Moles of transport were then ex- 
planied, water carriage being possible to a consider- 
able extent. The cost of a portable steam engine 
could be paid by ti e lo s and labour saved in 
outting a few thousands of trees. Even a wind- 
mill erected at Trincomalee might save a mint 
of money. 
The inquiry closed with the evidence of Mr. 
Cantrell that the trial timbers would require a 
period of 3 years for full testi g. 
Of the list o£ 61 timbers appsnded to the report, 
a good many have been already noticed and others 
we may deal with on a future occasion. 
WEST INDIAN PAPAW IN CEYLON. 
Mr. H. Pestonjee, the well-known Parsee 
proprietary planter, whose name has been re- 
spected here einoe the time of his arrival, in 
the same vessel as Governor Sir George An- 
derson from Mauritius, in 1850, — has just made 
a very useful addition to the fruits of the island. 
This is the West Indian papaw, seeds of which Mr. 
Pestonjee got down from Bombay about a year ago. 
At his lesidence in Dematagoda, the tree has grown 
so well as in six months to be bearing fruit, and 
a speoimen of the fruit brought to us shows that 
it is a magnificent improvement on the ordinary 
papaw. Mr. Pestonjee has seen the fruit so large 
as to weigh 14 lb. : the one before us is 6£ lb., and 
we are told the edible portion is very much finer 
in flavour, while the seed occupy an insignificant 
part in the centre. Mr. Pestonjee comppres the 
fruit to the best pineapple : we shall be able to 
report later on as to this. Mr. Pestonjee has sent 
seed to his estates of Debedde and Wewisse in the 
Badulla district where many years ago under old 
George Morrice, he introduced superior figs. Mr. 
Pestonjee has also distributed seed among several 
friends and all report that the tree does well. He 
feels sure it will grow and produce better upcountry 
than even in Colombo. 
». — . 
COFFEE AND CINCHONA IN DIMBULA. 
Uppee Lindula, Jan. 17th.— The weather is per- 
feot just now : occasional rain and hot sun — this 
makes the tea flush. Estimates for six months 
ending December are short with most people. 
This kind of weather brings the trees forward 
rapidly, and we expeot better results the half-year we 
are in. Coffee is looking wonderfully well. The yield 
for the season just dosing has exceed, d estimates 
everywhere. Grub at the roots is our most 
deadly enemy ; the coffee tree would, I believe, 
—especially in these young districts— throw off all 
other pests if the roots were not disturbed ; the 
"root of all evil" is the white grub, One is 
inclined still to believe in coffee after walking 
through aores of fine, healthy trees in the Agras, 
and somo coffee over here, in the Railway Gorge' 
does not look so bad although sadly neglected for 
years. Had I the money from the owners of this 
plaoe, "Cymru," I should have a couple of hun- 
dred ooilies pruning. I would do this and leave 
the tea flush to take care of itself ! I hope the man 
who buys this estate will not root out the coffee. 
I do not agree with Mr, Hamlin that people ar 
harvesting cinchona because the trees canker. There 
is nothing like the extent of canker now to what it 
was 8, 10 and 12 years ago. The difficulty, these 
years, is to keip the cinchona from growing ! It 
grows on sides of steep cuttings and in drains and 
on the sides of paths, and it also grows now where 
it refused to grow 10 and 12 years ago. Cinchona 
kept most of us afloat, kept body and soul together 
when the parent (coffee) was dying and before the 
child (tea) had grown up. Cinchona will be a grand 
spec yet, and to root it out of the ground is a sin. 
The syndicate will do more harm than good. At 
present buyers are aware we have bark on the 
trees; very soon they will know we have both bark 
on the trees and piled in our stores, and as long 
as they know this why should the price go up ? 
The process, I mean the business, is unnatural: 
when a man has produce to sell, let him sell it 
and let all have a ohance. There are lots of tea 
planters, in all districts, who do not like to see a 
cinchona tree left in their tea fields; this is quite 
sufficient encouragement for oinchona growers 
without storing their bark in Colombo. Best 
thanks for the photograph of our future Go- 
vernor. He has a look as if he would suit us ! 
He has lots of work before him, — "Northern Arm," 
"New Docks," " Eailway to Galle and Matara^" 
"New Colombo Post Office," "Bailway to Ella'," 
" Seaside drive to Mutwal." Have something in- 
stead of that filthy Lotus Pond and widen Chatham 
Street 20 feet, a. H, T. 
AN AMERICAN VIEW OF THE LONDON 
TEADESMAN. 
HOW HE DOES BUSINESS AND HOW HE "DOES " THE 
AMERICAN. 
Mr. G. W. Smalley writes in the New York Tri- 
bune : — 
High Prices and Adulteration. — Tea, sugar, 
coffee, and many other things are notoriously not 
always what they pretend to be, nor is the pound 
always a pound. The plain truth is that the Lon- 
don tradesman is not oontent with honest profits, 
no matter how large. He grows fat on dishonest 
profits. He and your servants are in collusion to 
rob you, and rob you they do and will, spite a 
any sorutiny or supervision possible to enforoe, 
is no novelty. There is a kind of tradition that 
the British manufacturer and the British merchant, 
at some unknown past period, prided themselves 
on making honest goods and selling them honestly. 
A great authority, perhaps the greatest, in suoh 
matters, onoe told me his opinion on the subject. 
There never, was, in his opinion, a foundation for 
this tradition. There was, perhaps, a time when 
things were not so bad as now, but never a time 
when adulteration and fraud were not habitually 
and generally practised.— St. James's Budciet. 
Deo. 27th. J ' 
[Adulteration and fraud exist exceptionally, but 
the above is gross exaggeration Ed. T.A.] 
* _ 
NOTES ON PKODUCE AND FINANCE. 
Has a new alkaloid in tea been discovered ? Accord- 
ing to the Journal of the Pharmaceutical Society, Messier 
Pau and Courley, who have been carrying on ' some in- 
vestigations upon a sample of tea, have found out 
during their experiments an interesting substanoe, to 
which they have given no name ; it is ceitiiDlyan al- 
kaloid, and it is neither theine nor theobromine. As 
subsequent investigation may prove this substance to be 
identical with theophylline, whioh Kossel obtained 
from tea sometime ago, chemists can afford to wait 
without becoming over esoited on the subjeofc. 
