April r, 1890.] THE TFOPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 685 
Lankat Plantations Company for their liberal behaviour 
in this matter, and that this meeting expresses its keen 
appreciation of their conduct." 
Mr. Peaohey seconded the motion, which was carried 
unanimously. — L. and 0. Expreis, Feb. 7th, 
♦ 
PLANTING IN NETHERLANDS INDIA: 
COFFEE AND COOLIES. 
(From the Straits Times, Feb. 25th.) 
The Surabaya Courant notes the fact that distress has 
taken firm hold of the natives in East Java owiug to 
short crops. The people cannot find a livelihood in moBt 
cases as estate labourers, owing to Government obstruc- 
tion, The law interferes so vexatiously between phint- 
ersand coolies that, on may estates, the crops cannot fta 
gjatbered in time for want of hands. On some planta- 
in ons, for instance, hundreds of'piculs of coffbe had to 
remain unplucked and untouched in consequence. 
This year's coffee crop in East Java, so says the 
Locomoiief, presents every appearance of being a short 
one, owing to leaf disease and bad weather. 
The Grovernor-Gener.il has given permission to one 
G. A. Brend to recruit 500 natives in Netherlands India 
for coolie labour in Australian sugar plantations, on 
condition of his giving due security for fair dealing and 
for their safe return to that island free of cost. 
In West Java, a planter named Muader has fallen 
victim to the murderous grudge of a Chinese mandor 
ou his oinchona plantation. The Locomotief ascribes 
the murder to revenge on the part of the Chinaman 
whom Mr. Munder had discharged. 
♦ 
EUBBER CULTIVATION IN CEYLON. 
Mr. J. A. Betts, Assoc. M. Inst. C. E., a 
representative of the Indiarubber, Gutta Percha 
and Telegraph Works Co., Ltd., Calcutta, is down 
here on a health trip, having had a bad attack of 
fever, in addition to which he has also a spr. in 2d 
ankle. He is stopping at the Galle Face Hotel, but 
hopes to return to Calcutta in a few days. 
While in our offioe this morning he spoke 
about the cultivation of rubber, and said he 
had been talking to Mr. Bois, of Messrs. J. M. 
Robertson & Co., who told him he was just send- 
ing home some samples of Ceylon rubber, but 
did not think they would be up to much. It is 
inferior to the Darjeehng rubber, which, in its turn, 
is inferior to the Brazil article. In Darjeeling the 
tree has not hitherto been cultivated, but lately 
Government have been planting it a good deal with 
Brazil seed. Brazil sends the largest quantity 
to the home market, and the Indian ex- 
ports have lately been considerable, but the 
supply is not yet equal to the demand. 
The principal objection to the cultivation of rub- 
ber is the faot than a man's money is " tied up '' 
in it so long before he gets any return — ten years 
at the least. Even this is too soon to tap the 
trees : they ought to be left till they are at least 
20 years old, and then they can be tapped every 
year. Mr. Betts thinks, however, that rubber trees 
might perhaps be planted for shade on tea estates. 
He will find a heap of information in our com- 
pilation " All about Rubber." It is a pity he 
should not see some of the old trees in Dumbara 
and Matale. 
NOTES ON PRODUCE AND FINANCE. 
A grocir, writing to a con (nip rary up m the sub- 
ject of a possible reduction in lie tea duty, says: — 
"The first question which fjrcoi itself on one's mind 
is, ' Do the public — the consumers — want tea ch aper 
thau it is now ?' I do not recollect Laving seen or 
heard of any one consumer of tea ol&mou-ipg either 
at a public meeting or through the medium of the 
Press for the abolition of the ilut; • I • th ro a single 
grocor's shop in the whole country in which the ex- 
clamation, ' Tea and sug«r are cheap enough,' bus not 
been repeatedly uttered even by the poorest people 
in times of depression? Your readers cau testify to 
this. Again, it may be asked. Do the grocers, or 
teadealers themselves want it? To this I unhesita- 
tingly reply, Na ! Many grocers, indeed, would regard 
a Gd per pound reduction in the price of tea as little 
short of a calamity to the trade. In the interest of 
equitable taxation, too, it is only fair that the most po- 
pular of all non-alcoholic beverages should bear, at least, 
some portion of the country's burden ; more especially 
when it can be landed on our shores at a price never 
dreamed of when last the duty was reduoed. Onces 
more one may ask, Are the working classes of this 
country owing to the present price of tea, debarred 
from drinking as much as they wish, or would they be 
likely to indulge in that beverage to any greater ex- 
tent than they do now if the duty were taken off? 
To these queries I answer, No." This correspondent 
seems so intimately acquainted with the desires of hifl 
fellow oreatures that he leaves nothing more to be said 
on the subject. 
In America the manufacture iu large quantities of 
a spurious coffee berry has been discovered, made of 
flour snd water and coloured to closely resemble the 
real article, so that even experts have been deceived. 
In taste, of course, the counterfeit is easily detected; 
but, nevertheless, large quantities have been sold in 
the Eastern States. The sham berry is mixed with 
the genuine berry. This ingenious fraud originated 
in London, whence the American coflVe importers say 
it was at first imported.— Home and Colonial Mail, 
Feb. 4th. 
* 
GEMS AND GOLD IN THE NEIGHBOUR- 
HOOD OF COLOMBO. 
"In the mountains around Adam's Peak" — 
says a very old writer on Ceylon — " they collect 
" precious stones of every description, and in the 
" "Valleys they find those diamonds by means of 
" which they engrave the setting of stones on 
" rings." The region of Sabaragamuwa at the 
foot of the Peak has ever had the pre eminence 
in our island history as the land of gems and 
although rich " finds " have been made at widely 
separated spots in the Central, Southern and 
Western -maritime districts ; yet gem-digging as 
an industry has ever been associated with the 
region around and south of Ratnapura, " the city 
of gems." The case is different with gold. The 
plutonic rooks of the Central Provinoe though in 
many plaoes very attractive to the seeker of 
auriferous quartz, have never proved otherwise 
than slightly metaliferous. But in the rivers 
flowing to the coast, and especially to the Western 
coast, gold has always been found in minute 
particles — so that the old story is as true of Cey- 
lon as it- is of India, that when natives residing near 
rivers have nothing better to do they go and wash 
for gold and they make sometimes as much as 
" two fanams a day," while it is on record that a 
man once made as much as " four fanams !" This 
is calculated to impress the stranger who asks 
eagerly, it may be, the value of a " fanam," but who 
collapses on learning that it is but the sixteenth 
of a rupee ! It has however been pointed out 
again and again that the gold found so freely in 
minute specks in the Mahaoya, and others of our 
rivers, must have its matrix in tlu region higher up. 
Mr. BlackeLt of Dolosbage dii as much perhaps 
as any pioneer to endeavour to oome on this 
matrix and the result from a tunnel ho bored 
into a quartz reef on his property, was 
tested in the Assay Office, Vi.toria, and gave 
a yield of gold per ton whioh though it 
might justify working where all the applianoes 
wero at hand, would scarcely satisfy capitalist 
to be^in in a new country. It is Mr. Blackett's 
firm opinion however that much better results 
