July 2, 1888.J THH TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
69 
did briug away with me from thut country a deep in- 
terest in, and a warm affection for, its inhabitants. 
Sir William Hunter lias given a sketch of the gradual 
shortening of the trade routes between Great Britain 
and her Indian Empire. May I invite you to take a 
glimpse into the Inline. [ am still one of those who 
firmly believe that the day is not tar distant when we 
.shall see a railway carried through from the Levant to 
the Persian Gulf, startiug from Aiexandretta or 
Iskanderoon, and going on by Aleppo down the Tigris 
to Bagdad; audi hope that long before that railway 
is completed the British Government— carrying out the 
policy of Lord Beaconsfield— will have recognised the 
enormous importance of Cyprus, and will have spent 
the trifliug sum of 200.000'. in making Famagusta a 
harbour fit for all the navies of the world. But I 
go further than that, and venture to predict that 
ere long the overland route to India will be com- 
plete- If our engineers are throwing a railway across 
the Firth of Forth, why should they not bridge the 
Bosphorus, across which B) ron swam? I have a 
friend who has lately made two or three wonderful 
journeys through Persia— Colonel Mark Bell, of the 
Koyal Engineers— where no British officer has ever 
been soou before, and he has returned with the firm 
conviction that a great strategical line ought to be 
constructed from the Punjab to the Levant. I hope 
it is not unsoldierlike to say that I trust that Rus- 
sia and Great Britain will soon find that the world 
is large enough for both, and that the two countries 
will enter into friendly rivalry and construct, not one 
line from Europe to Asia, but two, and that Great 
Britain will take the lead in laying down a line, say, from 
opposite Constantinople to the Punjab. It might first 
go on from Bagdad eastwards to Teheran, and on 
through Beloochistan by Khelat to Jacobabad ami the 
Indus; but eventually a line might even be made 
through Asia Minor. I am aware of the physical 
difficulties, but they are not greater than have been 
overcome in t'o ghauts of Bombay, in the mountains 
of Ceylon, or iu the Blue Mountains of Australia. Nor 
do I believe that the political difficulties are greater 
than English statesmanship can surmount. Of course, 
tonight the debate has been entirely about trade and 
commerce, but I canuot help thinking of what the 
effect on India would be of a railway to Western 
Europe. We know how the dominion of caste is al- 
ready totteriug to its fall, but when a great passenger 
traffic grows up between the Indiau Empire and Great 
Britain caste will disappear for ever, and the enlighten- 
ment and religion of the West will drive out the 
ignorance and superstition of the East. Inheritors of 
religious light* and liberty, I hope and trust that, while 
conceding to our Indiau fellow-subjects religious liberty, 
wo shall u<it shrink from giviag them at the same time 
religious light, — Colonies and India, May 16th. 
+ 
COCONUT CULTIVATION IN THE WES- 
TERN PROVINCE. 
MILD MONSOON WEATHER— THOEOUGH PULVERISATION 
OF THE SOIL NOT PRACTICABLE OR ADVISABLE IN 
COCONUT CULTIVATION — SPADE CULTIVATION TOO EX- 
I'KNSIVI 1011 COCONUT CULTIVATION — PHOPKIl MANURE 
I OR YOU NCI PLANTATIONS— HOW BRANCHES AND HUSKS 
MIOULD HE UTILIZED — " VAPORIZATION " — EFFECT Of 
SMOKE ON GROWING PLANTS. 
Siyane KOBAXB, May 1888. 
This has beeu a most extraordinary season. The 
litttle monsoon has been very little with us, and indeed 
dispensed its moisture very sparingly. We had none 
of the deluges you were favored with, I am thank- 
ful to say, for 1 have a particular aversion to heavy falls 
of rain. The hit,' monsoon en pt on u^ like a thief on 
tin night of the 18th. The morning of the 19th 
mi tetj Wet, and I commenced the long deferred 
planting operations only to find that the weather cleared 
up tlio next day, and kept clear for a week after. 
BlflOS the 21th we have very gentle showers, between 
long Intervals of bright sunshine, which, however well 
it may suit the cooly engaged iu planting, cannot he 
as suitable to the plauts put out. 1'ortuuately what 
I am engaged in planting is endowed with a deal 
of latent vitality and is not affected by the extra- 
ordinarily mild season wo are having, 
Tropical agriculturists labor under a very great disad- 
vantage in that all the handbooks on agriculture avail- 
able to us deal with a form of agriculture which finds no 
parallel here. The cultivation of cereals and root crops 
for stock are the chief occupations of the farmer in 
Europe. Here we grow cereals, it is true, but under 
entirely different conditions. The chief branch ol agri- 
culture here is the cultivation of perennials. It 
therefore behoves us not to follow blindly the teach- 
ings of science but to adapt them to our particular cir- 
cumstances. In agriculture in Europe there is hardly 
anything on which greater stress is laid than on th u 
thorough pulverization of the soil. And why ? Becaus e 
what is cultivated tlicio la short-lived and has thi u 
delicate roots, the spread of which is dependent o B 
the mechanical condition of the soil. The aim of th e 
farmer is to have his soil so finely divided as to per. 
mit of the free passage of the roots all through it, so 
that they may meet and take up all the elements of fer- 
tility present iu it, and make as good growth as is 
possible in the short span of life allotted to such 
plants. To say that because a thorough pulverization 
of the soil is an essential condition of intelligent and 
successful farming in Europe, frequent ploughings to 
attain the same end are necessary in coconut plautiug 
here, is to lay oneself open to the charge of being 
more theoretical than practical. Except on the saudy 
flats, where ploughing is a superfluity if not a cause 
of positive harm, I venture to say that not one estate 
in a hundred has as yet received one ploughing dui iug 
its whole term of existence, and there are many pro- 
perties over fifty years old without showing signs of 
decay. In the face of these hard, stubborn facts, to 
preach en ploughings " annual and ofteuer " is not 
politic. I do not for one moment nieau to undervalue 
the immense benefit accruing to the laud from its 
being broken up. All I say is, that only what is 
practicable should be preached. A coconut tree has 
strong, hardy roots which will find their way through any- 
thing short of an impenetrable substance such as stone. 
If the soil is broken up in lines at intervals of a foot, 
the action of the air aud rain on it will permit of tho 
roots of a coconut tree roaming freely even ou bard, 
stiff soils. A man can flatter himself for having treated 
his property well if he can go over it with the plough 
ouce iu a decade. By the way, would not a cultivator 
be a more effective implement for breaking up the soil 
than a plough ? Those with three tines that Howard 
advertises would not be beyond the strength of a pair 
of buffaloes, I think. 
Those who havo paid any attention to agricul- 
ture must be familiar with what is known as 
cultivation with the spade. This consis'.s in first 
cutting a trench of the required depth on the piece 
of land intended to be gone over, aud placing the 
soil so removed on one side, aud theu cutting the 
scil before it aid placing it in the trench 
in a reversed po^itiOL. Tue trench formed by 
displacing the soil to fill up the first trench to 
be filled by the soil before it, and so ou till the soil 
of the whole plot is reversed. It must be apparent 
to anyone that the process is a slow and expensive 
one and practicable only over a limited area. I was 
much amused to find this system recommeuded for 
a coconut estate to keep the lateral roots away from 
the surface aud beyond the reach of the plough. 
This is the preliminary to frequent stirriug of the 
soil I suppose, aud is meant to overcome the objection 
to ft frequent disturbance of the feeding roots ! Tho 
man who firat practises this very practical system 
deserves a prominent place iu our Museum after 
death even although he is positively promised iu 
lifo the very material reward of having his tree 
come into heavy bearing between the ninth aud 
teutli years. 
A well-constituted mind never refuses to learn 
truths even though they may emanate froiu very 
humble sources. To the best of my ability I have 
sousisteutly aud strongly opposed tho reoommen- 
dution to use bones exclusively in cocouut cultivation, 
