43° 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December i, 1887. 
on the present Bystem by taking oil the Lekin or 
Octori duty. The Ohinese Government can no more 
exist without revenue than more modern govern- 
ments can. The removal of the export duty would 
only benefit the middlemen and the merchant by 
making it possible to continue shipments of rubbish 
at very low prices. 
4, 
The Shumshbenugger Tea Company, Limited. — 
Under the above title a company was registered on 
the 14th Oct., with a capital of £25,000, in £10 
shares, to take over from a company of the same 
title incorporated in India, the Shumshernugger tea 
estate, district of Sylhet, British India, for £21,000 
in fully-paid shares. The subscribers who take 1 
share each, are : — Ool. A. J. Filgate, e.b , United 
Service Olub ; Major-General B. O. Williams, E.E., 
73, Lexham Gardens ; M. Fox, 2, Catherine Place, 
Bath, railway contractor ; O. A. Goodricke, Dashwood 
House, tea merchant ; J. Sanderson, 46, Queen Vic- 
toria Street, solioitor; Major-General J. Bir<l, West 
Monkton, Taunton ; G. Seton, 34, Old Broad Street, 
Indian estate agent. The number of directors is not 
to be less than two, nor more than five; the first 
three subscribers, and Mr. John Steel will be directors, 
qualification, 50 shares. — H. $[ C. Mail. 
Coffee anb Cinchona in Java. — According to the 
latest advices the Government's coffee crop on Java 
is again 5,000 piculs less- the quantity will be thus 
285,000 piouls. The Netherlands India Agricultural 
Company held its annual meeting yesterday. From 
the report it appears that the coffee undertaking, 
" Soember Wangie," yielded a crop of 1,944 piculs, 
against an estimation of 1,500 piculs, and realised 
fl.47 per picul. The claim of the company on the 
firm of Lens and Bergsma necessitated a further 
writing off, the total loss amounting thus to fl.34,000. 
The amount of stocks is decreased by fl.73,000, 
required for working capital, and amounts at present 
to fl.227,000. Drafts accepted reached the amount 
of fl.58,000 on March 31st. The agricultural under- 
taking, Siti Ardja, situated at Tjitjalengka, near 
Bandong (Java), is to be converted into a limited 
company, with a capital of fl.500,000. The under- 
taking was started in 1874, is cultivated with 
1,000,000 coffee trees and 100,000 cinchona trees, of 
which 75,000 are Ledgeriana. The largest crop of 
coffee of this undertaking has been about 7,000 
piculs.— -L. & C. Express, Oct. 28th. 
Ensilage. — Mr. David Burril, of Little Falls, New 
York, states that by the aid of ensilage he is now 
keeping one hundred and forty cows on the same 
land where he formerly kept only forty. There is no 
increase of capita' for land, only a small outlay for 
the silo and the growing of Southern sweet corn for 
ensilage purposes. Hiram Smith has a similar ex- 
perience. Right here lies the secret of reducing the 
cost of milk and increasing the profit. Two things only 
are necessary : 1st produce more fodder on the same 
land at less cost per ton ; 2nd, as soon as possible, 
procure a class of cows that will give an increased 
amount of product for the amount of food consumed. 
When one cow will produce as much butter as two 
ordinary cows, and one acre will furnish as much food 
as six acres ordinarily do, the dairy farmer may be 
certain that he is on the right track. We want to see 
more productive acres and more productive methods 
of tilling them ; also fewer cows and better ones. The 
great reason that the poor farmer can make nothing 
at farming is because what he produces costs twice 
as much as it does the good farmer. There is room 
right here for good, long, strong thinking.— Hoard's 
Dairyman. 
Cooking and Food. — The question as to whether 
cooked food possesses any advantage over raw food for 
stock, has been settled to a certain extent by the 
New York Agricultural Experimental Station, which 
reports the results of an investigation into the matter. It 
appears that cooking food for stock lessens the nutritive 
vatui, over the larao food in a raw state. The chemical 
evidence shows there is a loss of albuminoid in the 
process of cooking, and also an apparent loss in the 
fat. By cooking the loss in albuminoids hundred 
.pounds of the food showed in the case of clover hay 
•188 of a pound, in the fresh ground meal T09, and 
in the case of old meal 543 of a pound. Cooking 
proved disadvantageous, both in the loss which occurred 
of actual albuminoid, and in the depreciation in the 
digestive value of the albuminoid that remains. — Indian 
Agriculturist. [This is a result so unexpected and so 
contrary to previous impressions that we shoui'i tHink 
it must be received with considerable qualification, at 
least this, that the easier mastication and digestion of 
the cooked food enables the animals probably to 
assimilate more of the nutritive matter than that could 
do in the case of uncooked food. — Ed.] 
Cinchona Cultivation in Java. — Mr. Van Romunde's 
report on the Government cinchona enterprise in 
Java for the the third quarter of 1887 is as fol- 
lows : — 
Tht weather continued pretty dry during July 
and the first half of August ; in the second half of 
the month and also during September a relatively 
large quantity of rain fell. The moist weather was 
favourable for the growth of the young and old 
plants, and did much good to the extensive nurse- 
ries. While in consequence of the mild east monsoon 
of 1886, the harvest of cinchona seed was so small, 
that during the fourth quarter of the year at the 
most only a single sale of ledgeriana seed can be held, 
the rainy east monsoon of this year leads us to ex- 
pect, that the blossoming of ledgeriana and the con- 
sequent crop of seed of next year will be meagre in the 
extreme. The harvest of 1887 consists of about 450,000 
pounds bark, of whioh by the end of the quarter 
•382,587 p >unds had been dispatched to Batavia. 
The crop would have been already considerably larger 
had not the excessive rain during the last few months 
hindered the operations connected with the gather- 
ins; and drying of the bark. The produce was obtained 
chiefly by the thinning out of closely planted ledg- 
eriana and succirubra plantations and to a certain 
extent by the uprooting of single trees of C. josephiana. 
On Juno 2nd and July 11th sales of Government cinchona 
bark of the harvest of 188C were held in Amster- 
dam. The average prices obtained at these sales 
were 57 77 and and 56 79 cents per half kilogram. 
The experiments with the grafting C. ledgeriana on 
O. succirubra in the open air have, in the initial stages, 
yielded no good results, but if psrsisted in and 
carried out with greater precautions they promise to 
give better results. 
Sale of Ceylon Indiarubbee. — The following han 
been sent to us for publication : — 
24th Sept. 1887. 
Messrs. Forbes & Walker, Colombo. 
Dear Sirs,— We have now to send you report on India- 
rubber, and to advise sale of it at Is 4d all round. 
14 days less 2§ per cent and payment on re -weights. 
It is a very saleable article in large quantity ; and 
price is very low at present of all kinds. It resembles 
slightly Mozambique kinds and in some respects the 
kinds that come from the West Coast of Africa and 
South America. You will observe what is said about 
this lot being rather heated. Can this be avoided ? Is 
it an original product of your island ? — Yours truly, 
Leslie & Anderson. 
29, Mincing Lane, London, E.C., 23rd Sept. 1887. 
Messrs. Leslie & Anderson, 
We beg to hand you report and valuation of your 
Indiarubber per " Goorkha" from Colombo. 
Mark. Val. abt. Sold at 
per lb. per lb. 
HMP 1.— 1 case about 21 lb. 
mostly liver but part scrappy 
Ball, rather heated and 
sticky. Is to Is 3d Is 4s 
2. — 1 bag found in case ; about 
22 lb. scrappy ball ; part 
heated. Is 4d to Is 6d 
In quantity we think this rubber, if not heated, would 
bring 3d to 4d per lb. more.— Yours faithfully, Dalton 
U Young. 
