5^4 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February i, 1888. 
With the natural increase of population, and the 
education of taste, afforded by good and oheap com- 
modities, you will double that quantity within 10 years, 
though I can hardly hope, that we alone shall be 
able to supply you with such an amount in 10 or 
100 years. A million and a half a year is a bigger 
contract than we ever reckoned on. But take others 
into the reckoning. Suppose you go in as big as 
California, is not the world open to you ? There are 
a million and a half acres of vineyards and fruit 
gardens in California now, and fruit is a better price 
than when the first aore was watered. I expect to 
see a million and a half acres tilled on the Murray 
before 1 die, and have not the slightest doubt about 
the market. There may be a glut — a glut almost 
always precedes the opening of the best market for 
any produce — but there is no doubt whatever about 
the sufficient opening being found, when it is properly 
•ought. Do you know anything, about preserved 
aprioots now ? Do you know that an apricot pro- 
perly dried, not boiled or made into jam at all, under- 
goes suoh a ohemical change, that all the mawkish 
sweetness of the ripe fruit is changed into a pleasant 
acid ? The fruit properly treated, will keep for years, and 
cook as well as on the day it was gathered. It is the most 
pleasant and one of the most powerful anti-scorbutics, 
known. Bring that fact home to the navies of the world, 
and you can keep on with the the planting of apricots. 
But really there is no fear or doubt about the market. 
Your market is the world, and when the world is glutted 
you may stop your taps and hoes but not before." 
" Then you really believe that irrigation colonies 
may go ahead on as solid a basis and with as fair a pro- 
mise in Australia as in California ?" 
"I do. I am going out to Mildura now with my family 
to make myself comfortable, and to work ; to spend 
money and to make money ; and before I die I shall 
expect to see the present population of Viotoria doubled 
by work done in and in connection with irrigation 
colonies alone. The mallee country i« all good. The 
limit of cultivation will be the limit of cheap and 
adequate water supply. I have no doubt that a million 
and a half acres might be tilled and watered on the 
Murray alone : the average of labourers required for such 
work being one to ten acres. That would be 150,000 men ; 
how many do you keep now, and how many women and 
children do they keep company with ?" 
And as to our other rivers, "you must remember 
that you have but one Murray, but there are opportu- 
nities enough on all your rivers, you have done a 
little work on them already, not much, because you 
did not know much about it, but still it seems to 
have paid. And on the Murrumbidgee, Lachlan, and 
Darling, there are opportunities, but the expenses would 
be heavier. There is but one Murray." — Australasian. 
■ ^ 
INDIGO. 
The Editor, Dyer and Calico Print tr, bas received 
from Mr. Olpherts a few notes on his process of 
manufacturing indigo, which are as follows : — 
First. — The plant will be put into the vats free 
from the sand and clay which adhere to the lower 
part of the stems. 
Second. — The plant will be steeped in as fresh a 
Btata as it can be. We are told by the best authori- 
ties : — " When the plant is beginning to blossom, 
it is fit for cutting ; when cut, great care should 
be taken to bring it to tho steeper without press- 
ing or shaking it, as a great part of the beauty of 
the indigo depends on the fine farena which adheres 
to the leaves of the plant." 
Third.— The "subsequent treatment" to which 
Professor Church alludes is the washing or scalding 
of tho exhausted plant in the cases, to obtain any 
rolouring matter that may remain in the plant. 
The water in which the plant has been thus 
washod, &c, will form a natural yeast when put in- 
(to the water in which other plants will be steeped. 
yeast which has been long wanted to create 
jrapid fermentation is thus provided with the double 
economy deHoribed. 
fourth — It will be convenient to be able to carry 
the plant short distances in these cases by coolie.s 
and over places where it is difficult to transport it, 
and m moving the plant from boats on to carts 
and the reverse, which generally occasions a great 
loss of leaf. 6 
Fifth.— A vat of 25ft. .x 16ft. will require about 
fifty cases measuring 3ft. x 2ft. 6in. x 2ft., made 
of strong galvanished wire, their end to be of cord 
netting, the mesh to be Jin. ; such a case will weigh 
about 81b. including ventilators, &c. The weight of 
the cases for a vat of the size named will be about 
4001b. ; their cost will vary from 2s. to 5s. each. 
It takes some twenty-two country cart-loads of plant 
to fill a vat of the size named ; the load is supposed 
to weigh from 5 to 7 maunds, or 4 to 5 cwt. The 
difference between the weight of the stems of the 
plant left in the fields from which the colour-producing 
parts of it have been cut, and the weight (4001b.) 
of the cases, must be a very variable measure, and 
can only be judged of at the factory. 
Sixth— Objections are taken to my plan. Some 
say that if they were to work my plan, they would 
not fill their vats, as at times (owing chiefly to the 
difficulty of getting carts and coolies to cut the 
plant, a work the coolies hate) they find it hard 
enough to do ao at present. The answer to this 
appears to be— So much the better for the proprie- 
tors, as then thejjexpense of carting, loading, water- 
ing, unloading, beating, heating, &c, will in a great 
measure be avoided. What is the use of incurring 
this unnecessary expense, except to show in the 
manufacturing reports that the vats were all filled, 
and that no more could be done, the produce being 
wretched? Then why fill and waste so many vata 
of your plant, which, by my plan, can in a great 
measure be avoided, as shown in Professor Church's 
report? Nevertheless, they will have had the power 
of manufacturing far more of their crop by adopting 
some such chauge as I propose. 
On the subject of manufacturing charges I said 
they could be reduced to cO per cent. I have referred 
to the estimates for the year 1884, approved of by 
the Agents for the Begum Serai and Khan Mirzapore 
Concerns, in which I was interested, and find the 
I items R14.312 entered as manufacturing charges for 
the Begum Sirai factory, and Rll,163 for Khan 
Mirzapore. These items are made up of the cost of 
the different processes I have named, and the cutting 
of the plant and press-house expenses ; 50 per cent 
saved on these amounts represents a large sum. 
Real objections can be raised to my plan, where 
men do not grow the indigo they manufacture them- 
selves, but buy it from the natives who grow it for the 
factories. There will be difficulty at first in getting 
the native cultivators to cut their crop different from 
the way their fathers cut it; but when the advantages 
of my plan are known, these difficulties will disappear, 
when it is seen that it will pay all concerned in the 
industry to adopt them, particularly where second 
cuttings are unknown — for instance, in the N. W. Pro- 
vinces, where the indigo manufacture commences about 
the end of July, and ends about the 1st of October. 
If they try my plans, as some intend, they will find 
they can manufacture their indigo in about the third 
of tho time (when assisted by women and children, 
the crop will be run over very quickly, at present men 
only are used for this purpose ; the stalk cau be cut 
down when from rain or other causes men can be 
spared) it, now takes, which will give the indigo time 
to sprout and give second cuttings. By heating judi- 
ciously, the manufacture can be carried on while there 
is plant to cut. 
In many places this late manufacture will net in- 
terfere with the preparing of the lands. In proof of 
the advantage of being able to heat the water with 
ease, and which will be still more easy when the quantity 
is so reduced by my plan, Mr. E. M. Macnaghten, then 
the Manager of the Regum Serai Concern, wrote to 
me on the 29th September 1875. "Produce to-day: 
heated, 4 vats ; produce, If presses ; unheated, 2 vats; 
produce, 2 dongas ; about 500 per cent, of the heat- 
ing process." 
