September i't 1887.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
173 
the sampan, a mere nut-shell, is knocked about a 
good deal. We find the steamer surrounded by 
trading craft. We have to achieve a gymnastic feat, 
perilous in proportion to the roughness of the 
waves in order to pass over these boats and reach 
the side-ladder. The filth and discomfort of the 
ship is unspeakable. The cabins are habitable. The 
meal served on deck for the English officers would 
have at once destroyed the most voracious appetite. 
This visit takes away from us all desire of departure, 
and causes us to rind charms in a stay in Singapore, 
to which we hasten baok, exeouting the same gymnastic 
feats as before, only in the opposite direotion. 
Tuesday, 27th January. — We leave at six o'clock, 
and the coachman conveys us to the Chasseriau estate 
in forty-five minutes. The journey is delightful 
through a beautiful green country. The property 
of M. Chasseriau, a Frenchman, is in process of 
transformation. The cultivation of manioc for 
tapioca, which from 6 piastres has fallen to 3.50 
per picul, not being any longer profitable, he is 
substituting for it the cultivation of coffee. The 
life of the proprietor is very interesting. 
Having landed at Bourbon at the age of sixteen 
years, unable to read and write, in three months 
he beoomes an accountant. He leaves for Maur- 
itius, then, for Penang where he enters a sugar plant- 
ation as an assistant. Soon afterwards he takes up 
on his own acoount in Province Wellesley an aban- 
doned estate, infested by pirates, whose former pro- 
prietor had even been assassinated. There he made 
his fortune : but desirous of revisiting France, he 
purchased a viue-orop near Bordeaux and mar- 
ried there. The phylloxera destroyed his property : 
he returned to Penang where his partner had 
brought the estate to grief. He was ruined, but 
he obtained a concession at Singapore for ninety- 
nine years and to it added other adjacent portions 
of land, the whole containing about 8,108 acres, 
M, Chasseriau has lived in Singapore for eighteen 
years. He is sixty years of age and is yet very robust. 
Tapioca. — Manioc is a small shrub propagated by 
slips, which are uprooted after the manner of pota- 
toes. The elongated root is of a whitish substance 
and tastes exactly like chestnut. Its cultivation 
has become very oxpensive, on account of the manure, 
which has to be imported. The preparation of the 
root is proceeded with on the spot in the factory, 
like the manufacture of potato-starch. A washer 
is made use of to cleanse and remove the bark. 
A second machine, the rasp, forms the feciila. 
This latter passes through two sieves from which 
it issues with water. This water is collected into 
large reservoirs where the pulp is deposited at the 
end of several hours. Thence it is removed in 
big hard and solid lumps which are laid out to 
bake upon hot plates after die style of tea, where it 
is kept in constant motion. There the tapioca is 
formed. Jt is permitted to cool on large copper 
dryers, and it is then sent away in large bags. 
Before being sent out for consumption tapioca 
undergoes a final process intended to reduce the 
residue into yet finer powder. 
Coffee. — It is well-known that at this moment 
the cultivation of coffee is undergoing a crisis, 
almost everywhere, in Ceylon, in Java, in the 
Nilgheris. This crisis is due to the malady 
which has suddenly fallen upon the plant- 
ations somewhat like the phylloxera in Fiance, 
without any one being able to put a stop to it. 
Imported from Brazil,* this pest, which bears the 
name of Hnnileia Vattatrix and which attacks the 
variety of Arabian coffee universally cultivated, 
consists of a sort of mouldincss falling upon the 
leaves. 
* Iiiroreot ! se<? our remarks.— En. 
A planter from the Republic of Liberia, in Africa, 
who came to establish himself in Singapore brought 
with him some seeds of Liberian coffee, which 
were unproductive. He had made a present to M. 
Chasseriau of some slips which on the oontrary 
produced splendid results, even when planted in 
soil that was unprepared. The Liberian coffee 
shrub is a real tree which in a few years, in its 
original habitat, attains a height of from thirty 
to forty feet, and is enormously productive. This 
coffee has an excellent flavour.* From a careful 
study of this plant, M. Chasseriau has concluded 
that it presented several characteristics of a nature 
to render its cultivation more profitable than that 
of the Arabian variety. 
(1) . Whilst the Arabian kind is only worth 
anything at a height of at least three thousand feet, 
which limits coffee cultivation to mountains, the 
Liberian can live near the sea-side and up to a 
height of 1,800 feet. 
(2) . Becoming a tree rapidly, the Liberian is 
productive in truly marvellous proportions. 
(3) . These coffee plants undergo the malady 
without being any the worse. t The leaves that are 
attacked soon fall and are easily replaced. The 
only remedy employed is manure. 
(4) . The revenue from twenty or thirty acres 
planted under Liberian is more considerable than 
that from two or three hundred acres planted with 
Arabian. 
M. Chasseriau, has made an exact calculation 
of the minimum expenditure and income per acre 
planted under Liberian. This calculation is based 
upon a period of six years beginning from the 
time of planting. It is the period of the smallest yield. 
Moda of preparation. — M. Chasseriau realises an 
economy besides in the preparation of manure, in 
causing the turf to be raised, which is disposed in 
heaps of eight feet broad and three feet high. While 
the turf is slowly burning the grass which has sprung 
is lifted in its turn and arranged in smaller heaps, 
which are set on fire, care being taken to cover them 
with earth so that the smoke does not escape. At 
the end of six hours a black mould is thus obtained 
with which the holes made at the roots of the 
coffee shrubs are filled up. The labourer who does 
this is paid at the rate of 17 cents a day, and in 
one day he can arrange thirty plants. The seed- 
plots are sheltered by matting in special nurseries. 
M. Chasseriau possesses at present a hundred- 
thousand young plants. His workmen engaged in 
transplanting make use of a long and narrow 
hollow cylinder, which they plunge into the soil 
around the slip, after having moistened the earth, 
which thus adheres to the instrument. The cylinders 
containing the young plants are brought to the plant- 
ation. The Blip is extracted after the cylinder has been 
pushed into the soil, andit is covered up with dry 
moss. The plantation occupies at this time from four 
to five hundred Chinese or Mulay labourers under the 
supervision of two European overseers. The in- 
telligent and continual activity of the proprietor 
has made this plantation one of the finest that 
can be seen. We observe there for the first time 
an experiment in cultivation upon level soil, which 
may, on acoount of the lack of drainage, bring 
about the inconvenience of the rotting of the roots. 
Upon the slopes the system of drainage is ex- 
cellent. The rows of shrubs are disposed in suc- 
cessive terraces communicating by canalisations. 
The water is directed along the hollows. It is 
enough b. sides to water only once, after plautiug 
* Unloituutuely the public do not like it. — 
Ed. 
t So we hoped iu Ceylou, but in reality the virul- 
ence of the disease was in proportion to the in* 
rreasid Mirfaee ol the leaves.— Ki>, 
