THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1888 
ment of the cost of the main Kne. We further 
kept to the case before us by considering the 
railway traffic and profits between 18G7 and 
1S83, the year in which the last debentures for 
the Kandy line were paid off. We made one 
omission: in saying that the coaching receipts 
were insignificant us compared with the goods 
traffic, we should have made it equally clear 
that we referred to the years in which the 
great profits from the main Hue were accruing. 
This might well have been inferred. Not so 
with out cont:mporaries original statement which 
he hai not yet withdrawn, namely, that "the 
export duty did not repay a tythe of the sum 
expended on the Kandy railway.'' We have 
shown that the export duty paid as nearly as 
possble one-tlurd of the total cost and certainly 
over three times the proportion the "Examiner" 
alleged Goad care is also taken not to notice 
the tact that the vast proportion of " coaching 
receipts" is due to the planting enterprise. How 
many people would travel from Colombo to 
Kaudy, M'ltale, Nawalapitiya and oowards save 
for that enterprise ? It will be worth the while 
perhaps — and we shall get the return made as 
lime permits — to show the proportions of receipts 
under " coffee," " rice," " other goods " and " coach- 
ing" from 1S67 to 1873 when only the main 
line exi,ted ; from 1874 to J.877 before the sea- 
side line was added; and since then, separating 
the little lowoountry line. But our contemporary 
will not be satisfied without widening the area 
of the oiscussion so as to cover the whole 
island, bringing in the rice fields of Batticaloa 
and the palm gardens of the East and North 
at well as of the West, and quoting our own 
figures for such cultivation as if they had a 
bearing on the Railway payment?. No doubt, 
i r, ni-ght be instructive to compare the total 
area cultivated in 1837 with that for 1887, and 
ask to what the great change is due. A readier 
means however of showing how the material 
improvement of the island in the fifty years has 
been mainly effected can be found through the 
history of our export trade. In 1837 — at the 
beginning of the planting enterprise — the total 
value of the Exp rt trade was £326,860, of which 
planting (European) products made up about one- 
third. The figures since then are nearly as 
lollows : — 
Approximate 
Total 
value of 
Year 
value of 
Plantation 
exports. 
Products. 
1837 
£ 326,000 
£ 105,000 
1817 
961,117 
£ 560,000 
1857 
2,558,460 
£ 1,600,000 
1867 
3,530,224 
5,730,051 
£ 2,500,000 
1877 
£ 4,600,(00 
1887 
4,001,836 
£ 2,300,000 
The great falling-off in coffee of course explains 
the difference, latterly ; but every year now will 
see tea working up to the old proportion of coffee. 
This year for instance, plantation products will 
probably give a value approximating to £3,000,000. 
Wu need not refer to the effect the local wealth 
caused by ''coffee" between 1857 and 1877 bad 
in developing the cocoanut planting industry. 
Indeed on the general question as to the planting 
enterprise having simply "made" Ceylon, its 
railways, its roads, its public buildings and institu- 
tions, we have evidence outside that of editorial 
circles altogether. We can quote Sir Henry 
Ward, S i' Hercules Itobinson and Sir VVm. 
Qreeory j while as to the Railway, we should be 
willing to leave a jury of intelligent Coylonese 
to decide on the point as to whether if there 
had been no European Planting Enterprise ia 
Ceylon, there vould in this year 1888 have been 
74 miles of railway made to Kandy, much less 
90 additional inile3 to Matale and Nanuoya 
* 
Large Government Order Foil Forest Trees. — 
We note in the "Dumfries and Galloway Standard 
that the firm of Messrs'. T. Kennedy & Co., 
nurserymen, Dumfries, were recently invited by 
Her Majesty's Commissioners of Woods and Forests 
to tender an offer to supply 600,000 young forest 
trees of specified varieties for planting on the Ciown 
lands in the Isle of Man. Their offer lias been 
accepted for over a quarter of a million plant*, 
which have to be straightforth delivered to the 
Crown Beceiver at Douglas. The order consists of 
Birch trees, Beech, Sycamore, Aider, .silver Fir, 
Oorsican Pine, Austrian Pine, Douglas Spruce, Scotch 
Firs. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
A New Remedy For Diabetes.— A. new drug of 
apparently great value lias recently been introduced 
into the market. It consists of powdered Jambul 
seeds — the seeds of a plant Syzyrjium. Janihohinum 
or Eugenia Jamholana found in various parts of 
India, the Mauritius, Ceylon, and the United States 
of Columbia. It has been well tested by the 
medical faculty in England, Germany and tLe 
United States, and is said to be a promising re- 
medy in all cases of diabetes. The action of the 
drug is to prevent formation of sugar in the system, 
and so to stay waste ; and cases are on record showing 
that under its influence the special restrictive diet — so 
obnoxious to diabetes patients — can be dispensed 
with. — Cassel's Magazine of January JSSS. 
Myrobalans Fruit as a Medicine. — At a recent 
meeting of the Societe de Therapeutique. a letter 
was read from M. P. Apery, of Constantinople, on 
the subject of myrobalans fruits as a medicine, draw- 
ing attention to the undeserved neglect into which 
they have fallen, since from the mi Idle ages to 
the beginning of the present century they were 
highly esteemed for their cholagogue, purgative, and 
astringent uses. They are still extensively used in 
Turkey and Persia at the present day as a laxative, 
possessing, like rhubarb, a subsequent astringent 
action. M. Apery, however, appears to labour under 
a misapprehension with regard to the commercial 
varieties of the drug, since he regards chebulic, citrine, 
belleric and black myrobalans as four stages of the 
same fruit gathered at different degrees of maturity. 
This probably arises from the fact that Sanscrit 
writers on medicine recognize several kinds of chebulic 
myrobalans, dependent on size and age, very young 
fruit about the size of cummin seed being known as 
Halileh-i-zira, when of the size of a grain of barley 
as Halileh-i-jawi, when of the size of a raisin as 
Halileh-i-hiudi, when half arrived at maturity and 
yellowish as Halileh-i-chini, when still further advanced 
Halileh-i-asfar, and when quite mature as Halileh-i- 
kabuli. Of these, however, the first, third and sixth 
only are in general use in India. The third when 
drid are the black myrobalans of M. Apery, and are 
known in Turkey as kara-halileh (('. e., black myro- 
balans), and are comrnouly carried by the pilgrims 
to Mecca for use in dysentery and diarrhcea, aud are 
taken in powder in the dose of 1 drachm twice a 
day. The sixth, or mature fruits, are said by Dr. 
Waring to form au efficient purgative without gripiug 
or other ill-effects, the dose varying from one to 
six fruits. The citrine myrobalans are, however, the 
produce of Terminalia citrina and the belleric of 
Teriiiinalia hellerica. These are largely exported to 
this country for tanning and dyeing purposes. M. 
Apery remarks that water and dilute alcohol extract 
from myrobalans a considerable quantity of tannin, 
precipitating the persalts of iron bluish black, and 
afford also a greenish oleoresinous rrntter coluble 
in alcohol, ether, petroleum spirit and oil of turpentine ; 
to this oleoresin M. Ap6ry gives the name of myroba- 
lanin. He believes that an extract of the fruits 
would be found very useful in chronic diarrhcea. 
.Touni, de Pharm. ct Chem., p., 140. 
