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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST* [October i, 1887. 
CEYLON UPCOUNTBY PLANTING REPOKT. 
THE SOIL FOR TEA — TEA ON MARIAWATTE — BIGNS OF 
THE N.-E. MONSOON — THE IDEAL COOLY. 
26th Sept. 1887. 
The question which has been regarded as un- 
answerable has frequently been asked : Where will 
tea not grow ? And men with peculiar experiences 
have affirmed that they have known the tap-root 
penetrate a cement floor, push its way with ease 
through the hardest cabook and flourish on an old 
macadamized cart-road, where the plants had simply 
been dibbled in. Nowadays we are all learning 
that where the best soil is, is the best home for 
tea, and that willing as the plant may be even 
in untoward surroundings, that willingness may 
be overstrained. There are a goodly number of 
acres growing our new product — that would have 
been better fallow. Already in some oases it has 
become a question, whether it would not be wise 
to abandon, and I have heard of one place in 
the Matale district, where, after a three years' 
trial, this extreme course has actually been 
recommended. What makes the example more 
peculiar is that the soil has the appearance of 
good tea soil, deep chocolate colour and consider- 
able depth. And yet the tea refuses to thrive. 
Spite of the general experience of the unsuit- 
ability of the past season for tea, I learn that at 
Maria watte there is every prospect of the highest 
record of that fruitful garden being outstripped 
by this year's returns. Other places in the same 
locality are doing well, and want only time to 
make a name for themselves. 
The weather is hot and dry and feels like the 
N.-E., while the wind still blows steadily from the 
S.-W. The clouds, however, are banking up higher 
and higher nightly, and many signs of the com- 
ing change are daily manifesting themselves. 
Work on estates- is rather diffioult to find, owing 
to the supply of labour being more than equal to the 
demand, this especially in regard to men. What 
to do with them is at times a sore puzzle, especially 
when the ground is hard and no digging or manur- 
ing can be done. The cooly of the future is the 
man whose personal charms will attract and attach 
to him two wives at the very least, and who dur- 
ing the slack seasons on estates will scorn to ask 
his employer for six days' work, or even the half 
of it, preferring to live upon the labour of his 
helpmates, than by the sweat of his own face. 
This may seem an ideal cooly, but he is n't : he 
can easily be found, and it is the kind we have 
got to encourage ! Peppercorn. 

PLANTING IN NETHERLANDS INDIA. 
(Translated for the Straits Times.) 
Among sugar growers in Java the impression seems 
to be gaining ground, that matters have reached that 
point where mending becomes probable. Hopes of 
coping successfully with falling prices by a cheaper 
outturn of sugar have been aroused by the satisfactory 
results attending trials with the so-called diffusion 
method. That process of sugar making has stood the 
test of repeated experimenting, triumphantly. Its 
general adoption is expected to admit of the planters 
making head against beet root competition. Others 
pin their hopes of improvement on growing the new 
Bornean cane, now becoming famous for fabulous 
yields of rich juice. These new canes and the diffu- 
sion process are hailed by the sugar interest as power- 
ful allien in the contest with the bounty-fed article. 
In Europe also the diffusion process is in high 
favour with beet sugar makers. The method consists 
in doing away with crushing altogether. The cane is 
aliced iuio small discs. The slices are soaked in water 
until all the saccharine particles are drawn out. 
THE SCALE INSECTS IN NEW ZEALAND. 
The New Zealand Departments of State Forests 
and Agriculture have published a work en- 
titled, " An account of the Insects Noxious to Agri- 
culture and Plants in New Zealand," in which the 
natural history of the scale insects is described, and 
the insects in their various stages are delineated. 
The author of this well-timed publication is Mr. W. 
M. Maskell, f. e. m. s., registrar of the University of 
New Zealand. By way of preface, Mr. Maskell leads 
his readers to infer that New Zealand has rather 
more than a fair share of insect pests, and especi- 
ally of those known as scale insects. From time 
to time papers have been read on these subjects to 
the New Zealand Institute, and others are to be found 
in European and American works not accessible to 
the general reader. "It was thought, therefore that 
the time had arrived when the information which 
might be useful to gardeners and tree-growers, as well 
as to students, might be brought together in a 
compendious form, and the present volume is 
an attempt towards this." A second volume will be 
required to render the work complete, there being 
many well-known pests other than those coming under 
the denomination of scale insects whose natural his- 
tory would certainly fill another volume. " For ex- 
ample, the ' Pine-blight ' (Kermaphis), the 'American 
blight' (Ercosoma), the 'black leech ' (Tenthredo), the 
cabbage caterpillar, the turnip fly, the various 
aphides on roses, geraniums, &c, the grass-grub 
(Odontria), the codlin moth, the borers, weevils, wire 
worms, and a number of others," might be enumer- 
ated, and we venture to think that more than one 
volume will be needed to treat these additional in- 
vaders of the orchard and garden in as com- 
prehensive a manner as Mr. Maskell has 
treated the coccids. These, as he rightly ob- 
serves, constitute one of the most general 
as well as the most noxious, families of plant para- 
sites iu climates such as those of New Zealand and 
Australia, excepting certain cold portions. The plates, 
we are told, have heen prepared with a double ob- 
ject; first that gardeners and tree-growers may be able 
easily to recognise the kind of insect which may 
happen to be damaging their plants ; and secondly 
that the student who desires to know more of this 
curious family may have enough details indicated to 
guide him in his investigation. For the first purpose 
the figures have been coloured as near to nature as 
possible ; for the second a few anatomical details 
have been introduced. The plates do great credit to 
all concerned in their production. There are no less 
than 23 whole-page plates, and on some of them from 
a dozen to three dozen diagrams are given; the de- 
scriptions appear on the opposite pages. The work 
which commences with the indispensable " glossary of 
terms and phrases" consists of six chapters, in which 
are dealt with the character, life history and meta- 
morphoses of coccidiJa?, their products (honeydew and 
black fungus). Next follow chapters on checks to the 
increase of coccididas, parasites, &c, remedies against 
coccididte ; catalogues of insects and diagnosis of 
species; their division into groups; an index of plants 
and the coccidida? attacking each, and an index of 
genera and species. Whilst it is certain that this 
work will be sought by agricultural and horticultural 
students, those actually engaged in the business of 
fruit growing should certainly make themselves fami- 
liar with its contents. The New Zealand authorities 
have shown judicious liberality in announcing that 
copies can be obtained from the Government printer 
at the low price of 5s each. — Australasian. 
♦ 
The Brazilian Nut Thee, a native of the country 
the name of which it bears, grows to an average 
height of seventy-five feet. The fruit resembles a 
cocoa-nut, and is about a third larger. Each ball 
contains from twelve to twenty nuts, three-cornered 
in shape and nicely packed together. During the 
season of their falliug it is dangerous to enter the 
forest without a shield, as the force of their descent 
is sufficient to knock down the stronges t man.— Indian 
Gardener, 
