558 
THE TROPICAL AtyRlCTCT-TURlST. [February i, 1889. 
To the Editor. 
LONDON PURPLE OR PARIS GREEN : BEWARE 
OF ITS STRENGTH. 
Dear Sie, — Dr. Trimen's letter in your columns 
regarding the above reminds me to mention that I 
received a packing case of either of the above com- 
pounds from Messrs. Sigg, Sulzer & Co. when estab- 
lished here about 8 or 9 years ago, just at the time 
when coffee leaf-disease was raging. I wished to try 
it on a cacao plantation in the Western Province, 
where all the cacao plants put in were destroyed 
by whiteants, hundreds of plants being destroyed 
nightly. I found that the stuff was so powerful 
that a solution of it sprinkled round the tree killed 
the plant outright. A few months hack having 
a large creeping rosebush infested with black bug 
I put a tablespoonful of it into a bucket of water 
and sprinkled it all over the leaves; within 12 hours 
the leaves all withered off, showing that the com- 
position is very powerful. I have still a small quan- 
tity left, and will be glad to let anyone have a little 
to experiment with. 
I remember also sprinkling a little of it around a 
three-year-old breadfruit plant to destroy ants, 
with the consequence that the fine healthy plant I 
had died in a short while. — Yours truly, D. 
[Did our correspondent get no instructions with 
his supply ? If he sends a small quantity to the 
Observer office, we shall see that an experiment is 
made. — Ed.] 
ARTIFICIAL TEA WITHERING. 
13th January 1889. 
Dear Sik, — The other day Mr. Chas. Lepper 
gave his ' views ' in regard to the siroccos new 
and old of Davidson & Co., and I think it would 
be well if planters in general would give the 
public through your columns their experience in new 
machines for the guidance of those about to purchase. 
The object of this letter is to bring more pro- 
minently before the public " Greig's " drying 
machine, which has hardly till now had a fair 
trial in Ceylon, but working as it has been re- 
cently on several estates, the public will be in- 
terested to know the results. 
For simplicity in construction and ingenuity I 
think it is far ahead of any other drier capable 
of doing a large quantity, while the fact that 
makers of all other recent machines are adopting 
the forced air draft shows that Mr. Greig had 
the " right end of the stick " here too. 
Apart from the question of drying, the machine ap- 
pears to be about as perfect a witherer as anything is 
likely to be,and it is the fact that Queenwood teas are, 
I believe, entirely or almost entirely artificially 
withered, and that they have fetched the best 
prices in last week's market that has induced me 
to call attention to it? (Later on Walla Valley 
teas also realized very high prices.) 
As a witherer, Mr. Wiggin says : — " It can 
keep pace with three rolling machines with 
a merely nominal expenditure of firewood, " 
and, if the teas so withered top or nearly 
top the Colombo market surely this machine 
requires better treatment at the hands of the 
public than it has got ; and my belief is 
that it shall take a high place among the tea 
driers, 'ind be thic tea witherer of the future. 
Mr. Dickson of Lebanon also wrote : " As a 
witherer it is a decided suocess and knowing what 
a saving of time, space, and trouble it is, I would 
not be without it." And further says : 
" The consumption of fuel is very little : I have 
withered two fills early in the morning before 
stoking up, simply from the latent heat in the ma- 
chine from previous night's work." 
I know as a matter of fact that the patentee of 
perhaps the most successful drier of the present 
day passed a high encomium on the machine which 
is as good a certificate as one could wish for, and 
think that if Mr. Greig would exhibit it to an 
unbiassed committee of public men, he would do 
a good service to the colony at large and himself 
too I hope. — Yours faithfully, L. D. 
P. S. — Lately when lecturing Hughes pointed 
out that tea should be fermented in a warmed 
room at a regular temperature, and I am inclined 
to believe that this machine makes good tea greatly, 
owing to its giving it an equal fermentation during 
withering at an exactly regulated temperature. — L D. 
[People have been prejudiced against Mr. Greig's 
machines by the unmeasured language in which 
their maker described their capabilities ; but if all 
that is stated above, especially in regard to 
withering, can be sustained by public trial, we 
think that trial ought to take place, — say at 
the approaching Agri-Horticultural Exhibition at 
Kandy ?— Ed.] 
FOOD-STUFFS: EURAKKAN AND GINGELLY 
OIL : CURIOUS PARTICULARS. 
Eotmale, 21st January 1889. 
Sib, — Kv.rakkan is the staple food of the poorer 
classes in the Madura district. The vast majority of 
the coolies who come down from the Zemindary of 
Ramnad live on hurakkan. It is there known as 
keppai.* In Jaffna too, the peasants live on kuraklcan, 
but not exclusively. But neither in Madura nor Jaffna 
is parangi caused by kuraklcan. Although it is a nu- 
tritious and sustaining food for labourers, peasants 
and hard-working people, it is not wholesome to those 
who lead easy lives. To the latter, rice is the best 
food. It is a sort of biscuit most fit for invalids and 
the sick. Practically the rice we eat is boiled twice 
before it is eaten. Raw rice is more sustaining than 
the double-distilled rice eaten by the people here . In 
Wynaad the Canarese coolies live on raw rice; but 
this diet did not agree with the Tamil coolies who 
went there. Brahmins use raw rice largely. The use 
of raw rice must be encouraged.t 
Mr. Borron has with great keenness pointed out 
the value of sesamum. This is the first time I saw 
a European praising it. No Tamil would use for culi- 
nary purposes any other oil but gingelly, if he can 
afford it. 
For growing the hair as well as for polishing and 
blackening it, I do not know whether there is any 
other oil in the world which can compete with the 
modest gingelly. If it be bottled, labelled, puffed up 
and advertized, it will fetch the same value as the 
nobler Macassar. A large portion of the Tamils in 
Jaffna and South India use giogellv oil with rice as 
butter is used with bread. It is considered by some 
medical men as an efficient substitute for cod- 
liver oil. It has for the last 2,000 years supplied the 
place of turpentine in the Tamil land. In former 
days Jafmese who trained their boys for feats of strength 
fed them with sweetened gingelly poonac, the oil not 
being exposed. The Tamil Materia Medica says of 
gingelly that it confers youth, meaning thereby that it 
is very nutritious or fattening. Uluntu or blue gram • 
is another nutritious foodstuff- 
Some Indian gipsies told me that when they travelled 
through the Wanni they were offered large quantities 
of buffalo curds and buffalo ghee, which they invari- 
ably refused. When I asked them the reason, they 
* This explains the " Eeppaikad" of our Tr.ivan- 
core correspondent. — Ed. 
t We suppose our correspondent means rice which 
has not been deprived of the husk by the process 
of scalding.— Ed. 
