804 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June x, 1888. 
base. Treated properly from the first (all 
extra shoots being pruned away), this tree 
might now be 30 feet high and 3 feet in 
circumference. Mr. Fraser writes : — " There are 
cinchonas here still 40 feet high, but they are 
not so good as you have had, and they are 
more ornamental than useful now-a-days." 
Too true, and Dimbula can show no such cin- 
chonas as we saw the other day on Roe- 
hampton estate, Haputale. Measurements of 
tea trees, grown for seed bearing, up to 32 feet 
high (are there any loftier in Ceylon ?) we reserve 
for a separate notice, but we venture to quote from 
the letter which accompanied the measurements 
we have given and commented on. Our correspon- 
dent, who knows as muoh about trees as most 
people in Ceylon, writes: — 
" I note what you say in the Observer of the 26th 
about the different fuel trees, and I shall send 
a sufficient quantity of each to experiment with in 
the Venetian. I doubt if you have any of the 
A. decurrens on Abbotsford as from the description 
given, I imagine it is the one so common about Nuwara 
Eliya, of which there is not a single specimen here. 
This is no loss, however, as the dealbata is a much 
more free grower and shoots readily when coppiced, 
and I am doubtful if tlie former will do so. 
"The pycanthus is, I suppose, the golden wattle 
growing: near the bungalow here in such profusion. 
It is a nice looking aud very hard wood, but not a parti- 
cularly fast grower, and when coppiced the stools 
and roots die off. At any rate a dozen I cut down 
here some months ago, some of which were not 
more than a.couple of inches in diameter, are all dead. 
If, however, this is the true golden wattle, what then 
are the handsome golden foliaged trees on the 
ridge which throw no suckers from the roots?" 
This refers to one of the noble acacias we have 
mentioned, the young foliage of which is in one case 
golden, in the other silvern, while the gum exuded is 
lovely ruby colour. — Now, as previously, we have 
given the public the benefit of our personal ex- 
perience, and we hope others who have anything 
to tell about trees economically useful, or 
likely to be so, will be equally communicative. So 
shall "X. Y, Z." and other planters be in a 
position to draw inferences more correct than that 
coolies can live and get fat while destitute of fire- 
wood for purpose of warmth and ooooking. Timber 
for tea boxes we may be able to obtain from Japan 
apart from the use of metal ; but fuel and other 
estate purposes, it would seem judicious that we 
cultivate some well-selected trees on belts and 
ridges and corners of estates. 
WHERE GOOD COFFEE GROWS. 
Home Varieties Cost Seventy Cents a Pound on 
the Plantation. 
At the Coffee Exchange recently several well-known 
speculators were discussing the new boom in that 
market, when the subject of the Mexican product came 
up. Said one broker : " Probably the best coffee in the 
world is raised about Jalapa, but it never reaches the 
markets of the United States, for the reason that it 
is bought up seasons in advance by resident English 
bu> era for the English market. The resident German 
buyers contract for three or four years in advance for 
the crops raised in the States of Vera Cruz, Tobasco, 
Colima, Michoacan and Guerrero. The little State of 
Colima has probably exported more rich cnff( 6 beans 
than all the other Mexican States put together, and 
at the astounding price of seventy cents per pound. 
A friend of mine went down to try to secure some of 
this delicious product, even at the price mentioned, 
bat he found himself forestalled by the English, French 
and G&nnan resident buyers, who watch with hawk- 
like glance that the letter and spirit of their contracts 
with the Mexican planters are carried out even to a 
•ingle pound of the bean. 

" Jalapa is connected with Vera Cruz by a steel rail- 
way sixty miles long, aud this country is described as 
an Eden. The coffee plantations are interesting, aud 
always slope toward the east. When the plants are one 
year old they are transplanted into squares ten feet 
apart, with banana trees between, to protect the coffee 
shrubs from the fierce rays of the sun. At this age 
they are about two feet high, and they are never per- 
mitted to attain a growth of over six feet. The plant 
bears from the age of three years, and, unless blighted, 
continues to yield up to its fifteenth year, when it ia 
usually uprooted and supplanted by a one year old 
sprig. 
" The leaf is olive-green in color, the blossom white, 
and the berry itself a pea-green. Each berry contains 
two beans, which, when ripe for picking, turns carmine. 
The average earnings of the six-year-old coffee shrubs 
are forty cents, and a plant between twelve and fifteen 
years of age yields from $ 1 to $ T25 worth of beans 
yearly. Coffee is picked much the same as cotton or 
hops, and the peons earn about twenty-five cents per 
diem during the season. Upon the coffee plantations, 
bananas and castor-oil beans berries raised between 
the coffee shrubs to shelter them are sold at absurdly 
low prices. Last year the value of coffee exported 
from Vera Cruz was Sl,900;000; Colima, 8 240,000; 
Chiapas, $ 96,000 ; Gurrero, $ 15,000 ; Michoacan, 
$ 153,000; Morelos. $ 83,000 ; Tobasco, 869,000 ; Oaxaca, 
jjji 8fi,000. No we don't know in New York what really 
good coffee is. Coffee at seventy cents a pound on the 
plantation would cost a pretty penny here, even if we 
could get it."— N. Y, World. 
■ " ' ♦ 
" GOLD IN CEYLON." 
In the matter of gold, Ceylon would seem to 
present a very tantalizing problem, and the wealth 
beneath its soil to be as unequally distributed, 
and as uncertain as that which we try to extract 
from the cultivation of its surface. I have no 
doubt rich gold deposits and prolific gem beds 
do abound if only they could be found ; but just 
as tea will grow from the sea to Nuwara Eliya, 
but not flush everywhere the same, so may, and, 
I believe, does gold everywhere abound, though 
only here and there in " paying quantities." So 
far as " nuggets " and " pepitas" are concerned, 
their existence, generally in the country so long 
worked for gems, must be very strongly doubted, 
or their existence must have become well-known 
in all the long past during which gemming oper- 
ations have been carried on. On the other hand 
auriferous dust may well abound in such land 
quite invisible to the unsuspecting and inexperienced 
native diggers. If, however, it can be authenticated, 
that an occasional large " nugget " has been found 
here and there in the gemming lands, but not 
many, then the presumption is that a gold "reef" 
exists somewhere in the adjacent hills, or did exist 
at some remote period ; and that free auriferous 
dust, in paying quantities, would be found lower 
down the watershed in the opposite direction. 
For " nuggets," then, the country so long worked 
for gems is the last place I should look for them 
in. This is only a deduction from what I conceive 
to be logical reasoning, and is open to confutation 
by anyone able to confute it. Dewubangala may 
be a new gemming field, and net far from rocky 
eminences, and so not come within these remarks 
and conditions ? In 1854 Bradley and his mates 
prospected in the Mahaoya, and found only " grains " 
of gold. They were satisfied with the prospects, 
this dust held out to them, till that excitement 
oollapsed, as it did most effectually, for in his 
report the then Government Agent, C. P. Layard, 
declares that " 8 cwt. (say 16 cooly loads) of soil 
I washed in his presence only yielded J grain of gold" 
("Gold in Ceylon" page 91). True, unofficial 
rumours flew about of far richer yields than this, 
