350 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. (November i» 1887. 
KINGING TREES. 
TO THE EDITOE OF THE " AUSTRALASIAN." 
Sir,— I have successfully rung whitegum, redgum, 
striugybark, and yellow box trees by simply putting 
through the bark one down cut, and, before drawing 
the axe, wrenching out the bark. The plan W9S sug- 
gested to me by a grazier who had rung large paddocks 
by this means. The time for doing it he suggested 
as May; but I worked it the succeeding winter months. 
The rationale of the plan appears to me that the cut 
and wrench form a trough into which the winter 
rains run, and, soaking through the sap, descend to 
the roots, effectually killing the whole tree. No suckers 
grew from trees so killed. The box is upwards of 
two years dying, the stringybark a less period, and 
the whitegum dies in six months. Prejudice won't 
allow old hands to work this way unless obliged. I 
reckon the saving in labour to be 75 per cent over 
cutting through sap. We have rung trees 3 ft. and 
over in diameter. — Yours, &c, Selectob. 
THE PREPARATION OF COFFEE IN LONDON. 
Mr. Thomas Christy writes as follows: — Wherever 
coffee has been found indigenous, it has been 
observed that the natives pick it and dry it in 
the cherry, or outer skin, and it is well known that 
this improves the quality, and the flavour is better 
retained, even for years. In many places merchants 
can command supplies of coffee in the form of " dry 
cherry," or in the " parchment," and some parcels in 
the cherry I sold to houses who roasted it with 
the outside jacket on; but as this required experienced 
roasting, the proprietors of the coffee warehouses saw 
the necessity, and ordered sets of the most approved 
coffee-dressing machinery, and erected them in London, 
and large quantities of coffee are treated here which 
command the full market price. During the last two 
months I have been seeking for some means of 
turning the large stock of coffee husks to some account, 
with the professional assistance of Mr. R. H. Harland, 
p.C.s., and of Messrs. Cross and Bevan ; coffee dressers 
can find no use for these husks. The great advantage 
of this established enterprise is that the large companies 
opening up Africa can purchase the dry coffee in 
small quantities, and have it home in bags, and as 
soon as it arrives it can be sent at once to the 
warehouses to be decorticated, and placed on the 
market. Messrs. Major and Field, of Red Lion Wharf, 
allow me to state that in 1886 they decorticated 
10,000 bags of coffee, and that in one vessel they 
received over 3,000 bags of coffee in the parchment 
to be decorticated. They further state that they have 
100 tons of the husk which they would be glad to 
find a use for at a very low price. 
In conclusion, I would like to put on record another 
fact, viz., that kola is being mixed with some of the 
preparations of coffee which enables the vendors to 
state that their mixture contains " no chicory," which 
ia of great importance now that it is proved that 
the addition of chicory conduces to the growth of 
haemorrhoids. — Planters' Gazette. 
AGRICULTURE ON THE CONTINENT OF 
EUROPE. 
{Special Letter.) 
Parts, Octeber 5. 
The all-absorbing problem for French and perhaps 
other agriculturists is to make wheat growing re- 
munerative. Prices now have descended to what they 
were a century ago. In the old world, land is handi- 
capped with an excess of taxation. Against this the 
cheap wheat centres, as Australia, the United States, 
Canada and, less so, India, are not so weighted, but 
they have to meet the expense of transport. On one 
hand then, Continental farmers must aim to produce 
more grain per acre, and their rival competitors to 
secure the cheapest facilities for transport. Perhaps 
it ia well, that on each side there is a limit to the 
conditions of tho commercial struggle. 
In France the problem in general terms is this : 
The total expenses per acre for the production of 
wheat are, say 160 fr.; the price to be secured ia 
from 10 to 12 fr. per cwt. The yield becomes then 
the fluctuating factor, and dependent on climate, 
culture, richness of soil, and not only sound, but 
climatic-suited seed. It is only now farmers com. 
meace to perceive the importance of the latter in- 
fluence on harvest returns. Assume the bushel of 
wheat to weigh 60 lbs. and the yield per acre to 
vary from 5 to 40 bushels— the quarter being eight 
bushels. If one farmer only raises the minimum 
as in parts of Australia, and the maximum as in 
the United States, France, Manitoba and good wheat 
soils in England, the solution of the proMem lies 
in how to produce the difference, that is, 6o ou^helc,- 
or 19 cwts. per are. In some cases soil and climate 
forbid the attempt; iu others high farming must be 
resorted to. 
There are natural laws that regulate the cultivation 
of wheat in temperate zones. In dry climates wheat 
only is possible where the rainfall is slight. The 
culture of a plant, both as to soil aud climate, ia 
essentially contingent. The natural conditions, where 
that culiure takes place, demand necessarily some 
modifications in the processes, but above all in the 
manurings. Sir J. Lawes has pertinently observed 
that the inducement to enrich the soil for wheat is 
diminished by the fact that the profit expected will 
not pay the increased outlay for manure. The dis- 
turbing elements in comparative wheat culture aud 
differences of yield will be found to be essentially local, 
and can only be regulated or equalized by direct 
experiment. Some essays in this sense have been 
made at the agronomic station, Mathieu de Dombaale 
in the east of France on clay, sandy-clay, sandy and 
calcareous soils with different varieties of English and 
native wheats. The aim was to show that by judi- 
cious selections of native wheats, equally prolific and 
more reliable and more precocious varieties could be 
secured than from foreign samples. 
Native grain, weighing 64 lb. to the bushel 
was 60wn ; on the clay soil it stooled 12 
stems; on the loam, 14; on the sandy, but 
6. Other result: when the soil was well prepared 
and the seed spaced ten inches, the yield for native 
selected wheat was very superior to ordinary local 
kinds and culture. About one-seventh of the total corn 
raised in France is employed as seed, and it is cal- 
culated 20 times too much seed is sown. Hence a 
wilful loss for consumption. Further the best ears of 
the foreign samples "Nursery" and "Hunter," as 
compared with the best of the native varieties, were 
respectively 49 and 44 per cent heavier. 
In the assimilation of lime, potash, phosphorus, &c, 
the roots of plants act the analogous part of the 
stomach in animals in contact with the food matters 
absorbed. The more the roots are developed the 
greater will be the surface in contact with the soil, 
aud consequently the better the plaut will be fed 
and developed. In a rich clay soil the roots of wheat 
are vigorous, large in diameter, and less numerous 
than in poor land. In sandy, but above all in clay 
soils, the roots are more capillary, fine, long, and 
more abundant. And these differences in the roots 
are alike uniform with the same wheats raised on 
such soils. It is by the direct contact of the root- 
lets, with the solid food materials that nourish the 
plant, and not by the absorption of these same materials 
in a state of dissolution in the bosom of the soil 
as was formerly believed and that a few still maintain. 
The practical conclusion of this is, that the soil can 
never be in too good tilth, nor the fertilizing matters 
too perfectly reduced and regularly distributed. 
It is by instinct that the plant, develops its roots, 
and in proportion as the soil is poor or the materials 
of nutrition irregularly disseminated, that development 
will be greater somewhat, as animals will have to 
range over a greater space where food is scanty in 
order to secure sufficient for the totality of their 
wants. This will be still more striking from another 
point of view. When wheat is sown broadcast about 
330 grains fall to the square yard; not more than 
180 seeds at most germinate, each sending up one, 
two, but rarely more than three or four stems. The 
