546 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February i, 1889. 
pluck comes forward, and proposes to the minister 
for the Colonies to develop the resources of an 
island like Cerara, he is told that his plans cannot 
receive the sanction of the Government. From 
Bachan little is heard, just as little in feet as of either 
new plans or the putting into execution of those 
previously formed for investigations in the Kei and 
Teniniber islands. It is years since Rozenfain was 
presented in pamphlets as the gold mine of the future ; 
but no steps have yet been taken for working it. Run 
since the departure of the English, is hardly known even 
by name. New Guinea seems to have a black mark 
against it, ever since Fort Dubus twice lost half of its 
garrison from malaria. Several of the missionaries at 
Geebonik Bay lost their lives in the attempt to form a 
Settlement; and the men-of-war in those waters, on the 
rare occasions that they do appear, have half their 
crews on the sick list. 
Meanwhile neither Germany nor England have been 
inactive in their terrritory, They have looked for 
habitable spots till they found them ; they have gone 
up the rivers in steam-launches, and penetrated far 
into the interior, they have dug for gold and found it; 
have imported building-materials from Europe and 
founded Settlements, they have strengthened their posi- 
tion by other means than signboards and presents of 
silver-headed walking sticks to the Papuan chiefs ; in 
a word they have taken possession both in New Guinea 
and North Borneo right under the very nose of the lion 
of the Netherlands. 
Borneo seems, indeed, to be the land of the future. 
A petty frontier-dispute as to whether the Atas or the 
Sibuku is to form the boundary between what is nomin- 
ally Dutch but really English territory will, doubtless, be 
contrived shortly; with the natural result that the line 
contended for by England will be accepted. Then it 
will have to be decided whether tobacco will grow 
everywhere, and, especially, what sort of tobacco; 
a vital question indeed for the colony. 
Yet, although the result may not be as brilliant 
as optimists of the present day would have us be- 
lieve, England is far from leaving her colonies, es- 
pecially young ones, in the lurch. This can be seen, 
for instance, on the Malay Peninsula, a country by 
no means fertile compared with Java or Sumatra. 
Numberless experiments with different sorts of crops 
have been made ; and, with the exception of pepper, 
gambier and a few others, nearly all have failed. 
Higher up, however, opposite Penang the resources 
of Province Wellesley have been developed and con- 
siderable quantities of sugar are now produced. 
Assistance has been given to native states, Johore, 
Perak, Selangor, Sungei Ujong &c, and they are now 
thriving. Where tobacco would not grow, sugar was 
planted, or tin mines opened. Let any one who 
wants to know more of the resources of these dis- 
tricts and their rapid rise, read the description given 
in Dutch newspapers of Deputy Oremer's journey, 
and the humiliating parallel drawn by him between the 
way in whioh Dutch and English manage the affairs of 
their respective territories. 
TEA DRIERS. 
A practioal planter with no interest one way or 
the other, writes : — ■ 
" With reference to the Observer paragraph re 
Davidson's Siroccos and Brown's Desiccator, your 
correspondent says, ' it requires less fuel than any 
machine I know.' That may be true enough ; but, if 
a steam ongine has to be kept working to drive the 
fanners, bow about the fuel consumed thus. The 
Siroccos require no motive power. With water power 
Brown's Desiocator is all right." 
«. _ 
ENSILAGE EXPERIMENTS IN THE 
MADRAS PRESIDENCY 
are roported to the Madras Government as having been 
made on a large scale, but with very varying and in 
many oases very unfavourabl eresolts. Horses, sheep and 
goats usually refused to eat the silage and sometimes 
even cows and bullocks would not t >uch it. The most 
successful experiment were conducted on the Nilgiris 
and at Salem, aud are thus uiticed : — 
Nile/iris. — Four silos were made in this district, and 
were all successful, the sifage having been readily 
eaten by cattle, though the Badagas, who are ex- 
tremely conservative and very slow to adopt new 
methods, predicted that it would not be, and after- 
wards soundly abused their animals for eating what 
they considered such foul food. The use of silos is, 
however, well known to planters, and is becoming 
pretty general ou estates. Mr. Lawson, the Govern- 
ment Botanist, has made many silos and has doue 
much to demonstrate the utility of this method of 
storing grass to Badagas. 
Salem. — Nine silos were made in this district, one 
by the Collector, Mr. McWatters, one by the Sub- 
Collector, Mr. Dumergue, and the rest by the Forest 
Department. The grass used by Mr. McWatters was 
not good and possessed very little nutritive power. 
The silage was, however, eaten by cattle and by some 
horses and ponies, but sheep would not touch it. Mr. 
Dumergue's experiment was eminently successful. His 
silage was so greedily eaten by cattle and by castra- 
ted ponies under treatment that there were more 
applications for the silage than could be complied 
with. 
The results of the whole were thus summed up : — 
Of the 78 silos opened, 32 were either wholly or par- 
tially successful. This is but a small proportion, but 
the experiments made in the Kistna district were con- 
ducted with such inadequate knowledge and those in 
the Nellore district were marked by so much want 
of care that they may be left out of account. If this 
is done, the result will be that, out of the remaining 
53 silos opened, 31 or 58*5 per cent, were more or 
less successful. 
Considering the circumstances in which the experi- 
ments were conducted in this Presidency, the results 
may be considered as, on the whole, satisfactory. 
In the first place, many of the officers, who were en- 
trusted with the conduct of the experiments, had no 
special knowledge of the subject, and the instructions 
printed in G. O., No. 593, dated 9th July 1886, do 
not appear to have been sufficient to enlighten their 
ignorance. Some of the officers again were not able 
to superintend the conduct of the experiments 
throughout, as they had to quit the station on leave 
or transfer. The experiments also had in some cases 
to be entrusted to subordinate officers in remote locali- 
ties, who were either ignorant or had no interest and 
could not, therefore, conduct the experiments in a 
satisfactory manner. Those that were conducted by 
the superior officers were generally satisfactory, but 
even in these there were failures, as in the experi- 
ments made by Messrs. H. G. Turner and Wolfe- 
Murray in Vizagapatam, by Mr. T. M. Horsfall in 
South Arcot, by Mr. Johnson in Chingleput, aud Mr. 
Goodrich in Bellary. In the case of the experiments 
conducted in Vizagapatam, Mr. Lawson, the Govern- 
ment Botanist, and Mr. R. Sewell, C.S., have ob- 
ligingly pointed out (Board's Proceedings, No. 491, 
dated 8th December 1887) that the probable cause 
of the failure was the omission to see that the earth 
sank continuously with the sinking of the silage. 
Mr. Lawson also suggests that the best form of a silo 
is a long narrow deep trench, say 30' length x 8' 
width x 12' depth, and that it is better to take a 
longer time in filling the pits than was taken by most 
of the officers who conducted the experiment in this 
Presidency, so that the grass may sink of its own 
weight, and so that through the air not being at once 
absolutely excluded, the grass may ferment better and 
yield a sweeter fodder. Mr. Lawson also suggests 
the use of the ordinary mamoty with the edge sharpen- 
ed like an axe for removing the silage which should 
be cut in steps, so as to expose as small a surface 
as possible to the action of the air aud prevent the 
reft of the silago from getting mouldy. As regards 
Mr. Horslall's failure, Mr. Lawson remarks that, 
judging from Mr. Horsfall'e own description of the 
