May i, 1888.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 745 
♦ 
To the Editor. 
QUININE IN ClIOLEltA AND IN HEROIC 
DOSES. 
Chittavurrai, Kannan Devan District, via Bodinayaka- 
nur, S. India, Friday, 19th March 1888. 
Dear Sir, — I enclose a newspaper cutting which 
contains interesting information for those connected 
with cinchona : — 
The Decean Times, on the authority of Dr. Lawrie, 
the Residency Surgeon, Hyderabad, Bays that a preven- 
tive for cholera lias, been found in quinine : "While 
the diseRse is about, every one ought to take from 3 to 
5 grains of it before each meal. No one who does this, 
Dr. Lawrie is persuaded, will take the disease." 
Has quinine ever been brought forward in this 
light before ? With regard to the articles which 
have been appearing lately in the T. A. about 
" heroio doseB " of quinine, I may mention that 
five years ago when about to leave home for this 
country, my brother, who was just then com- 
mencing to practice as a medical man, told me 
to disregard tho advice of all men who told me to 
take 3 to 5 grain doses ; the proper thing he said 
was to take as much as was possible without 
permanently injuring oneself, say 20 to 30 grains, 
and then retire to bed, making up one's mind 
for a couple of hours' splitting headache, and buz- 
zing in the ears. When these symptoms subside, 
the fever is gone for good — at least that particular 
dose of fever. I have tried this treatment with 
success on myself and on coolies. Small doses 
are best taken as a preventive only. — Yours faith- 
fully, AYLMER F. MARTIN. 
COCONUT CULTIVATION.— No. II. 
Siyana Korale, 1'ith March 1888. 
Sir, — I was very much interested with " W. B. L.'s" 
review of coconut planting, that appears in your last 
night's issue. The result of droughts in coconut 
cultivation has a close bearing on Mr. Akbar's grand 
work of irrigation, and tho figures your correspond- 
ent supplies as- to the decrease in tho weight of 
nuts resulting from tho drought of 1886-87 offsr some- 
thing tangible to base calculations as to the finan- 
cial success of irrigation for coconuts. " W. B. L.", 
when sending you an account of Mr. Akbar's irriga- 
tion works, mentioned that tho annual droughts in 
the valley reduced tho weight of copra per nut 
from 7 to 5 ounces^ -R7,80O on a million of nuts. 
Accepting tho figures in the review under notice, 
I find that 1,500 nuts were necessary to make a 
candy of copra as ngainst 1,200 under normal 
conditions. Taking 12 ounces to tho lb., this will 
give 5 - 0t> oz. per nut of copra under ordinary cir- 
cumstances as against l is oz. during a period of 
drought, or a difference of l"12 oz. per nut. We have 
been told authoritatively that the yield of Mr. Akbar's 
estate is one million nuts per annum. If irrigation 
helps his trees, mid of this there need not be a shadow 
of a doubt, to properly mature their nuts, the gain of 
112 oz. on a million nuts will equal about 107 candies 
per nuiiuni, which at 1X30 — K5,0OO. This makes no 
allowance for nil increase of yield which must, in tho 
nntuial course of things, follow irrigation, and the 
rendering available all the year through the plant food 
existing in l&d applied to tho foil, and for the nuts 
Miveil from chopping duiing tin so annual droughts 
from lark of moisture. I am not as sanguiiio as the 
correspondent who expects tho yield to be trebled 
as a remit of irrigation, but mil more inclined 
to favour W. H. L.'s calculation of n -0 per rent, 
increase in the yield, and myself think thnt the aver- 
age of 1,200 nuts for n candy of copra will bo reduced to 
pome thing urnr 1,000. 
1 think your correspond) ut is n " leetle " out whon, 
in discussing the nature of pliosphctir Qianunn, ho 
rujs that " u plant tukta up uu wore than tho duo 
N 
proportion its specific constitution requires to complete 
its tissues. Thus if you place a bushel of bone dust 
within reach of the roots of a coconut tree, it will take 
up exactly as much and no more than is necessary in 
its specific combination." As far as my knowledge 
goes, roots are not endowed with more than rational dis- 
crimination, but take up as much fertilizing matter as 
they are able to. Their powers of absorption are as 
limited as the capacity of a stomach. A human being 
or an animal, if an unlimited quantity of food be 
placed within reach, does not eat it all up, nor 
does it eat " exactly as much as is necessary 
in its specific combination," but as much as it is 
able to. I do not think I have ever denied that 
" Phosphate is an indispensable element to healthy 
fruitfuluess," nor have I ever dared to differ from 
the general broad principles of agricultural science. 
Your correspondent and f are not agreed as to the 
applicability of these principles in particular cases. 
A definition is given of a stimulant, accepting even 
that definition it does not prove that phosphates are 
not used as a stimulant " to temporarily draw on the 
latent strength'' of a young coconut tree in order to 
induce it to bear, because that is its precise action 
in this particular instance, and what is actually 
aimed at by its application. The experience of your 
correspondent must, I suppose, be the experience of 
everyone, that " the earliest tree is the best," but 
only if early bearing is not forced. 
The experience of Mr. Kynaston, the Welsh gar- 
dener, who advanced certain theories on the function 
of certain roots, was given to the world in some 
agricultural paper, and taken over into the Tropical 
Agriculturist, somewhere about June or July 1884, I 
think. If this gardener were a young man and rash, 
I think it best both for himself and your correspond 
dent, that he did not advance his theory in his pre- 
sence, for the mere mention of it makes your cor- 
respondent lash himself into a rage; but my dear 
" W. 15. L." it must strike you in your calm mo- 
ments that your denial, however emphatic it may be, 
does not disprove Mr. Kynaston's theory. In this 
sceptical age a mere denial of anything, by however 
high an authority, is not accepted without being 
backed up by cogent reassns, and your donial of "any 
difference in the functions of roots" is not backed 
by what is an accepted and undoubted fact that the 
functions of lateral roots are not identical with those 
of tap roots, and yet both are roots. 
The contention that " the moat active forag- 
ing roots are near the extremities of the mains, 
is undoubtedly generally true, for the root hairs die 
on the older portions of the roots. Root hairs are 
generally at the extremities or tender portions of 
roots, and those on the older portions die off, as they 
become woody. But has " W. B. L." never seen a 
mass of rootlots at the foot of every tree, and is not 
tho coconut tree constantly forming new roots, and 
observation will show that these have a large number 
of rootlets at their extremities, and not far removed 
from the trunk of the tree. 
You question your correspondent's estimate of 20 nuts 
to a tree and say 30 nuts will be uenrer the mark. 
Your correspondent's estimate is if anything too high. 
Have you forgotten the discussion that took place 
lately as to why Europeans retired from tho field ns 
coconut planters in Batticaloa ? It was because the 
yield went down to somewhere about h nuts per tree, 
1 think. B. 
COCONUT CCLTIYATION IN CEYLON : 
MANURING dc 
ltfth March 1888, 
Dkak Sin, — During n casual discussion on manur- 
ing coconut trees with n friend quite receutly, I 
objected to equal proportions of bones and poonac 
being useil (8 lb ( of each to each tree!;, and said that 
I thought a safe mixture would bo one of bones to 
throe ot poonac, and that I Mould, by preference, use 
cantor cake to coconut poouac. "Why? 1 " iuquin d my 
friend, " Because castor cake bus so much more of 
nitrogen and other valuable fertilizing matter than 
pounao," I ausvered. My friend insisted that llughtl 
