548 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February i, 1889. 
In tobacco shares the year was less advantageous. 
Excited by the favourable results obtained in Deli 
numbers of new concessions were asked in Siak and 
Borneo, so that there were many companies estab- 
lished, some of which, in the former place, were obliged 
afterwards to stop the cultivation, causing thus a great 
loss to the eager shareholders. • 
4 
" LONDON PUEPLE " AND " COFFEE BUG" : 
DB. TBIMEN'S OPINION. 
In answer to our inquiry the Director of the 
Royal Botanic Gardens writes as follows: — 
One heard a great deal of " London Purple " during 
the " Colorado Beetle " scare about ten years back, 
as also of " Paris Green," both, I think, arsenical com- 
binations. No doubt such preparations are deadly 
to insect life, but it appears to be chiefly against the 
larger exposed kinds such as caterpillars and beetles 
that they have been found to be so successful. Our 
coffee "bugs " are small, very numerous and extremely 
well protected from external influences of all sorts, 
and I expect that if any progress in destroying them 
by such means is made, it will only be by copious and 
repeated applications, rather undesirable with so very 
poisonous a substance. If a trial be made of the 
remedy, a very small plot would be sufficient to show 
how far it affected " green bug," and such an experi- 
mental trial, which would cost a mere trifle, is, I think, 
worth making. 
I hear on good authority that the pest has much 
lessened quite recently in parts of the Udapussellawa 
district, and hope this may be the commencement of 
its practical disappearance whioh may be expected to 
occur at any time. 
An Uva proprietor has already ordered a small 
quantity of " London Purple " in order to give it a 
fair trial. Dr. Trimen's word of encouragement in 
referenoe to the probable disappearance of the "green 
bug " will be much appreciated by the remaining 
owners of fields of old King Coffee. May the 
verification of the worthy Dootor's expectation soon 
arrive. 
— # ■ 
PEPPEB CUTTINGS. 
Messrs. J. P. William & Brothers of Henaratgoda 
write as follows : — 
" We send you by this post pepper cuttings of 
the best Malabar variety from imported plants ; you 
will find that some leaves are 8 by 6 to 8h by 6J. 
We have already booked several orders for the next 
monsoon. We find aocording to our experience the 
best tree for pepper support is the Kapok for the 
lowcountry. Nava, Halamba, and E. Indica also 
answer well for the purpose." 
We submitted the above letter to Mr. W. 0. 
Wambeek, who now writes: — 
" Samples of pepper from William & Bros, duly to 
hand. The leaves have a fine large healthy ap- 
pearance, and the pepper is a really good kind. The 
fruit clusters are large and full. I had 3,000 
cuttings of this variety from them in October last 
which were put out and are doing well." 
♦ 
TEA IN JAPAN. 
In a recent issue we gave statistics showing 
that the total produce of tea in Japan during the 
current year was 24,177,587 kwamme, or 199,465,093 
lb. Deducting from this an export of 50 million 
lb. in round numbers about 150 millions remained 
for home consumption, or 4 lb por head of the 
total population of the empire. These figures were 
taken directly and without verification from the 
vernacular press, and they naturally attracted atten- 
tion, being largely in excess of any commonly 
acoepted estimate, The latest official statistics pub- 
lished do not carry usjto a date more recent than 1884, 
the production of tea for that year being shown 
as follows : — 
Fu and Ken. 1884 Fu and Ken. 1884 
Kwamme Kwamme 
Tokyo ... 59,270 Yamagata ... 13,304 
KySto ... 470,748 Akita ... 3,146 
Osaka ... 318,856 Fukui ... 82,541 
Kanagawa ... 55,491 Ishikawa ... 64,191 
Hyogo ... 271,778 Toyama .. 40,947 
Nagasaki ... 57,694 Tottori ... 24,579 
Niigata ... 154,372 Shimane ... 105,153 
Saitama .. 285,977 Okayama .. 106,031 
Gumma ... 7,063 Hiroshima ... 79,396 
Ohiba ... 84,045 Yamaguchi ... 97,579 
Ibaraki ... 170,330 Wakayama ... 114,116 
Tochigi ... 13,758 Tokushima ... 119,084 
Mie ... 520,520 Ehime ... 94,839 
Aichi ... 136,715 K6chi ... 156,136 
Shizuoka ... 722,787 Fukuoka ... 192,680 
Yamanashi ... 22,420 Oita ... 64,672 
Shiga ... 233,031 Saga ... 26,886 
Gifu ... 282,824 Kumamoto ... 280,417 
Nagano .. 2,512 Miyasaki ... 199,238 
Miyagi ... 27,219 Kagoshima ... 222,875 
Fukushima .. 19,288 
Iwate ... 1,473 Total 6,013,982 
According to the above table the total production 
for 1884 was only 50 million lb. in round numbers. 
The export for that year was 35J millions, so that 
the quantity remaining for home consumption was 
only 14| millions, or less than half a pound per head 
of population. Our oldest information on the subject 
of tea production does not go farther back than 
1878. In that year, according to official statistics, 
the total quantity grown was 22,782,565 lb. (2,761,523 
kwamme), whereas the quantity exported was, as we 
certainly know from Ous.tom House returns, 217,579 
piculs, or 29 million lb. The official statistics thus 
make out that in 1878 Japan sent abroad about 6 
million lb. of tea in excess of her total production. 
It is plain that no reliance can be placed on such 
figures. If, again, we take the rate of increase in pro- 
duction, indicated by the official statistics between 
1878 and 1884, and apply it to the period 1884-88 
the production for 1888 should have been about 70 
million lb. instead of 199 millions, as stated by the 
vernacular press. We trust to be able before long to 
place more accurate and trustworthy statistics before 
our readers. At present we confine ourselves to noting 
the difficulty of basing any accurate conclusion on 
existing data — Japan Weekly Mail. 

CACAO PLANTING IN CEYLON.: 
A Beview* (Continued). 
CACAO PLANTS AND WHITE ANTS— TRANSPLANTING— KE- 
EOSENE AND PBENYLE AND KEKUNA POONAC ¥OE 
" POOCHIES"— SHADE : PERMANENT AND TEMPORARY — 
JAK, ERYTHRINAS — LAND GRANTS AND SYNDICATES — 
FOREST RESERVES AND THE AUTHORITIES. 
Those who have had to do with Cacao cultivation alone 
know how delicate a plant it is in its earlier stages of 
growth, and how often one is inclined to throw up the 
sponge as he sees plant after plant succumb to no as- 
certainable cause or to the ravages of white-ants. The 
greatest mortality has to be faced in transplanting. To 
overcome this the ingenuity of planters has devised 
many means. Some sow seed in bamboo pots, only pos- 
sible where bamboos are plentiful, some in little bot- 
tomless pots or cylinders with whioh the plants are put 
out, and which receive a blow to crack them after the 
plants are placed in position, so as not to interfere with 
the development of the stem. When the pots are made 
of sufficient length to contain the tap-root, these afford 
the sa f est means of planting'. Mr. Holloway invented a 
transplanter which was simply a half-cylindrical piece 
* Cacao Planting in Ceylon; with Hints as to the Best 
Varieties to be Cultivated. A Lecture Delivered at Ma- 
tale, on the 30th June 1888, by Mr. J. H. Barber. Ctijlon 
Observer Press. 
