July 2, 1888,] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
'/ 
COTTON CULTIVATION IN JAFFNA. 
Mr. Charles Morrison, our well-kuown bank agent 
at Jaffna, has proved himself well worthy of the grati- 
tude of the Jaffna people. He is also ready to do anything 
in his power for the welfare of the people. He called a 
meeting of the leading men of the community, on the 
3rd May, to nominate and appoint a committee to 
consider and take the necessary steps to form a com- 
pany for encouraging the cotton cultivation in the 
Northern Province. Tho chairman, Mr. Charles Morri- 
son, explained in a lucid speech tho object of the 
meeting aud the bright prospect before tho people. 
He concluded his speech by saying, "the ball is set 
at the foot of the Jaffna man and it is now for him to 
roll it." Yea! we shall roll it, was the silent response. 
Mr, Vitianata Chetty Curryappa Chetty addressed 
the meeting, at some length, giving a detailed account 
of tho different species of cotton, the mode of culti- 
vation, and of his own experience of the industry. 
Hitherto, cotton, has been cultivated, here aud there, 
in the district in small extents, but rinding no proper 
market, tho cultivation has been discouraged. Now 
that the Spinning and Weaving Company having been 
organized at the capital of the Island, is ready to buy 
any quantity for ready cash, the bank would bo ready 
to advance money on cash credit system to the culti- 
vator whenever and whatever required. Unlike the 
tobacco or paddy cultivation, very little labor is re- 
quired and no manure is needed. If it bo sown in 
August, the first crop, it is said, can be reaped in tho 
following month of January. — within about six months. 
The plants are kept up for years together, yielding 
a harvest every six months. Very extensive acreage 
is available for this industry in the Pachilaipalle 
district, the Islands and the Wanny. It is hoped that 
the Government may help the new company by giv- 
ing lands now lying waste or overgrown with jungle, 
on easy terms, for utilizing them with the industry. 
Thus, we see the required land is available. Again, 
the labar is very cheap. There are hundreds of people 
in every division of the district thrown out of, or 
wanting, work to do. They can be easily enrolled 
for the required work. All things considered, the 
prospect is bright aud we may predict that good days 
are in store for Jaffua. — Com., "Morning Star," 
♦ 
BOLIVIAN CULTIVATED CINCHONA. 
South Americans allowed the planters of the Old 
"World a good start in the cultivation of cinchona 
beforo they thought fit to repair the waste aud the 
ravages in their native forests by rearing the bark- 
yielding trees in a systematic manner. It is perhaps 
a tribute to Spanish indifference to progress that a 
commencement in the cultivation of cinchona was 
first made in Bolivia ten years ago by German planters, 
one of the most successful being Mr. Otto Ilichter, 
of Cochabamba. Plantations exist at Mapire Longa, 
Ynngaa, and Mapire, north and east of La Paz, and 
in those localities over six million plants were first 
placed in cultivation. For some time the Bolivian 
cultivated calisaya, sent to our market in quiil form, 
has been a standing feature in the London bark 
auctions ; but quite recently one of tho principal cul- 
tivators has made a bold attempt to provide us with 
a cultivated substitute for the so-called flat Bolivian 
cahsnya, which is a bark much Bought after on the 
Continent, and for which prices are paid greatly in 
excess of its more alkaloidal valuo. A sample of 
this cultivated flat bark, recently submitted to us 
by the importers, shows it to have been carefully 
harvested. It is quite dry and powders readily, lenv- 
ing little fibrous material. An assay of the hark 
showed us that it contains 8 per cent, of total alka- 
loids, a percentage considerably under tho standard 
of the British Pharmacopoeia, but comparing favour- 
ably with tho quality of many samples of natural 
yellow cinchona. Unfortunately the appearance of 
tho hark under notice is somowhat against it. Of 
course the trees on Mr. Hichter's plantation are 
still young, and do not, therefore, yield such stout 
bark as tho wild cinchonas which provide tho ordi- 
nary Hut bark of commerce. Tho pieces, iu fact, uro I 
merely, if they may so be called, flattened quills, one- 
eighth of an inch in thickness, and which in the or- 
dinary process of drying would have curled up into 
quills, but were artificially prevented from so doing. 
The colour is partly a deep orange, partly streaked 
aud spotted with rusty brown, which gives the bark a 
queer look. Druggists, therefore, who merely appreciate 
appearance shun it; but we understand that on the 
Continent the bark is beginning to find a ready sale, 
aud it might be worth the while of our own export 
druggists to devote some attention to this new variety 
before it gravitates, as too many other drugs are 
already doing, towards rival markets. — Chemist and 
Druggist. 
. + 
GOLD AND COAL (?) IN CEYLON : 
COPPER AND MANGANESE. 
Is Mr. Judd (see his letter elsewhere) sure of his 
date, in stating that he helped to dig for gold at Nuwara 
Eliya in 1851 ? We suspect it must have been in 1854, 
because he says that "soon after this," that is, the 
digging by himself and his friends, the Australian 
diggers came to Nuwara Eliya. We know that some 
of the Australian diggers, when driven by fever 
and paucity of appreciable gold from the Maha- 
oya, in 1854, went to Nuwara Eliya and dug 
pretty deeply under the auspiceB of Sir Samuel 
Baker, who, with his late brother, was then settled 
in Nuwara Eliya. If experiments were made in 
1851, we think they would have been mentioned 
by the press of the day and by Sir Samuel Baker 
in his book. But, we well remember, that it was 
the advent of the Australian or Californian diggers 
in 1854 and their operations in the Mahaoya, near 
Ambepussa, which first drew attention to the matter, 
and led us then and subsequently to publish the in. 
formation which appears in a collected form in " All 
about Gold, Gems, and Pearls," respecting the notices 
in ancient records of the existence of gold in Ceylon. 
Those records and the action of the diggers, with 
Mr. Power's exploration of the auriferous stream 
to its sources in the mountains of Dolosbage, 
and the information of a miscellaneous nature 
which poured in upon us, once we commenced 
the inquiry, proved that the eminent geolo- 
gist, Dr. Davy, had grievously erred in 
denying the existence of gold in Cey- 
lon. The geological and mineralogical struc- 
ture and constituents of our Ceylon rocks so 
closely resemble those of Southern India, except 
that our quartz is not reddened so deeply by 
pyrites, that, gold existing in the one, it was 
only natural to infer that the metal would ex- 
tend into the other. We have now abundant 
and conclusive evidence, not only that gold ex- 
ists in Ceylon, but that it is about as widely 
distributed, if not more so than the precious min- 
erals (rubies, sapphires, "catseyes," and the 
ubiquitous and varicoloured tourmaline) for which 
the island had been celebrated for ages beforo Arab 
imagination gave the world the sensational tales 
of Aladdin (Allah-ad-deen), and Sindbad,whom Miss 
Jewsbery, in Iter imagination, saw, the one in the cave 
while she followod the other on the shore. But there 
is no proof that in the days of old, although gold 
was collected and coined in Ceylon, tho metal 
was found in quantity to remunerate the collec- 
tors. This work, like others, was a species of 
liajakariya : men collected gold dust from the 
rivor sands when the king or any potent 
chid guvu tho order. What was gathered was 
