528 
TH£ TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February r, 1889. 
realty some few needle?, which cannot be removed 
by auy of the excipieuts we used for that purpose. 
"We think, then, that the substance in question is 
Amorphous, but, however, has some tendencies to 
crystallise. By takiug it up again two or three time3 
■with boiling alcohol, it is possible to get it, at least, 
snow-white ; the compound of the resinous kind is 
fusible at 107^ centigrade. If heated until 230° centi- 
grade it keeps up melted without the slightest altera- 
tion, but at a higher temperature it darkens, and 
becomes decomposed. It is soluble in common alcohol, 
methylic alcohol, acetone, naphtha, chloroform, ether, 
turpentine, petroleum ether, and " sulphide of carbon." 
It does not dissolve in boiling potash, and does not 
give decomposed products under the action of melting 
potash. Nitric acid destroys it very quickly, and gives 
rise, among other things, to a crystallised body, and 
to some oxalic and picric acids. 
The formula of the compound is : O5H8O, or O20 
H32 04. This substance can be regarded as a pro- 
duct of oxidation of Albane (O20H32O2) contained in 
common gutta, but it is different as to the chemical 
properties. Besides, it possesses none of the charac- 
ters of the Fiuavile (C20H32O) which follows Albane 
in the common gutta. 
These two resins, the first of which is crystallised, 
the other one amorphous and translucent, are mixed 
in the gutta according to the following ratio: — 
Gutta 75 to 82 
Albane 19 to 14 
Fiuavile 6 to- 4 
100 100 
Whilst our Mimusops gutta contains only this white 
uncrystallis&ble resin, from which we just gave analysis, 
and which forms 42 per cent, of the raw material. 
The remaining, i.e., 58 per cent, of matter, insoluble 
in alcohol, is a dark brown mass, somewhat like 
common gutta, and which, like this, is soluble in 
sulphide of carbon, very little in ether, and quite 
insoluble in common alcohol, methylic alcohol, and 
acetone. That matter contains 9'80 per cent, of fixed 
resin, nearly all from some sulphate of lime. The 
compound of Mimusops gutta can be then represented 
as follows: — 
Gutta 4820 
Fixed sorts 9"80 
Amorphous resin 42 00 
10000 
The l'aw product, as well as the refined gutta, after 
eliminating all, or partly, that resin, can be used as 
we said before. The mixture suitable for electrotypiog 
can be obtuned by boiling the raw material with 
equal weight of alcohol at 90°. It is then filtered, 
and the remaining mass is mixed with equal weight 
of commercial gutta. — Indiarubbcr and Guttapercha 
Journal. 
+ 
Ootfee in Java. — Amsterdam, Dec 19th. — Dis- 
quieting reports are being received with 
regard to the sereh disease among the coffee 
trees in Java. It is said that the disease 
is generally assuming greater proportions, and that 
measures have to be taken to avoid a further 
extension, which would result in a total ruin of 
this large and remunerative cultivation. A trial 
made on a large scale by private planters in 
Kediri with the prick method, recommended by 
Dr. Burck, which is comparatively not expensive, 
mu3t have given satisfactory results. Dr. Burok 
has been charged by the Java Government with 
a tour of inspection through Java, and it may be 
expected that the Government will soon order the 
introduction of effective remedies to check the 
disease. According to private information, con- 
nrmation of the report is required, as the largo 
colonial banking institutions here have not yet 
been advised of the extension of the sereh diHoaso. 
— di €■ Express. 
Pepper Plants from Seed. — Having in our 
article on pepper culture stated that 3 lb. of peppe r 
seeds were sown in nursery beds on a lowcountry es 
tate.wG feel bound to quote as follows from a later re- 
port just received: — ''The fine weather has germina- 
ted the seed which I thought had gone bad, and a 
good many plants are now come up." 
Messrs. John Little and Co. have sent us a 
sample parcel of Perak Tea grown and prepared 
at the Government Plantations in Perak. The 
qualities produced are various, chiefly Pekoe and 
Pekoe Souchong, and are put up in convenient 
parcels up to 2 lb. Any of our readers desirous 
of giving this tea a trial may have a sample 2 
oz. packet by calling at Messrs. John Little & 
Co.'s. We have been kindly furnished with a few 
sample packets for distribution to friends visiting 
this office, whose opinion is invited upon the new 
growth. As we daily oscillate between the harm- 
less decoction at the "Caravanserai" and the 
nerve-destroying brew of the "Club" we have 
extreme difference in our own powers as a tea- 
taster of authority. The verdict of the more 
discerning palates of lady friends is therefore 
desirable in order to decide upon the merits of 
the new tea. — S. F. Press, Jan. 4th. 
Baid against the Sensitive Plant in Fiji. — 
We in Ceylon are aware that next to lantana the mimosa 
known as '* the sensitive plant," has of all intro- 
duced plants the power of spreading itself. In Fiji 
it must be a serious evil, interesting and beautiful 
as it is, for we read in the Fiji Times: — "The 
Governor having noticed the alarming increase in 
the spread of the sensitive plant in Levuka, has sent 
over instructions directing that steps be at once 
taken in Suva in order to eradicate that noxious 
weed. In pursuance of those directions, a gang of 
twenty prisoners has been employed in the task of 
destroying it, and they have been busily at work in 
the endeavour, with the effect that it has been 
cleared from at least the more prominent positions 
in the places where it had taken hold. But that 
any real good may be effected, the destruction must 
be thorough ; as, otherwise, the well-known tenacity 
of this pest will but render operations useless. It 
should be dug up and burnt, and no vestige left ; 
its extraordinary power of reproduction rendering 
anything like half measures absolutely inaffective. 
It spreads with wonderful rapidity ; and, from a 
single seed, a crop, marvellous in its growth, has 
been known to spring. It has been a nusiance for 
years in Levuka. 
The Great Drawback to the Cultivation or 
Grain, chiefly paddy, not in Jaffna only, but through- 
out the Northern Province is the long spell of 
dry weather — not to say drought — which the Province 
has to sustain. Referring to this subject, we find 
there is one more reason to be grateful in that we 
happen to have in Sir Arthur Gordon a Governor 
who has a discriminative and equitable Irrigation 
Policy — a policy whioh he fearlessly owns even as 
against the expressed views of bis highest coadjutors. 
Admitting this much, we cannot go the length of 
endorsing every Irrigation work as either necessary 
or paying. The circumstances of the island have 
greatly ohanged since the gigantic works of irri- 
gation whose very ruins strike us with wonder and awe 
were executed by the ancient rulers of Ceylon. 
Population has vanished, villages have disappeared 
and the works themselves have crumbled into ruins 
by long years of neglect, and, as the result, even 
the physical aspect of the country has undergone 
vast changes. People are not in hot haste to 
settle down in such places, in order to be swept 
by the fever-demon. We have always contended 
thot smaller works of irrigation in large centres of 
population, as for instance the improvement of village 
tanks to begin with, will be a policy to which even the 
stauncheat of Sir Arthur's opponents cannot and will not 
object.—" Ceylon Patriot." 
