THE. TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [March i, 1889. 
in a cigar box from soine part of the world, and now 
it has multiplied into thousands. It makes a splendid 
border for flower beds. Begonias seem to thrive 
remarkably well at Hakgala. One large leaf measured 
26 inches across. The plant that struck me as the 
greatest curiosity, and at which I wondered most was 
the Aspidium (Polystichum) anomalum. Itisan ordinary 
looking fern, but its spores are situated on the upper sur- 
face of the froDds and not on the under surface, as is 
the rule with all cryptogams : that was the anomalous 
thin? about it. Another ferm presented a sight worth 
looking at, and the Adiantum gracUlimwm can boast of 
being the finest of the maidenhair ferns. The Abyssinian 
banana* grows very rapidly: a plant 15 months old 
attains the size of the largest native plantain; its leaves 
are very broad, and grow to the length of about 7 feet. 
The fruit is not eaten, but oil, which is used for 
machinery, is extracted from the seed. The next object 
was the Japan pine tree, about 30 years old, the 
wood of which makes good tea-boxes. Mr- Deane, I 
was told, uses this wood for his boxes. Another curio- 
sity was a tree-fern with tree branches. A branched 
fern is as rare as the branched coconut trees which 
are met with in the Negombo and Galle districts. Of 
the old cinchona trees, there are only a few now left. 
One was shown me with its moss-grown stem of about 
50 to 60 feet in height. Of the roses there are no 
less than 130 varieties. We were fortunate, however, 
of having a sight of the wedding flower, which flowers 
in Ceylon, I believe, only at the Hakgala Gardens. 
It is a beautiful white flower, borne upon a branched 
peduncle ; it contains staminal bracts, and resembles 
the eucharis lily very much in form and beauty. The 
orchard, however, made up for all disappointments. 
The plum trees were in full bearing. Mr. Nock has 
successfully experimented in grafting branches of the 
good plum on to the common, and the result has been a 
good crop. There were a few pears, but not a single 
apple. The superintendent is not satisfied with the pre- 
sent size and condition of his orchard, and a new patch 
of land is being prepared for a new supply of plants, 
which he was expecting to arrive on the day of 
my visit, consisting of 24 varieties of fruit-plants. 
An improvement has been made in the cultivation 
of a herbaceous garden, which gives to the gardens 
a more scientific value. 30 to 40 long beds have 
been prepared, and these contain between 50 to 58 
natural orders. 
We spent a very pleasant day in the gardens, and 
I take this opportunity of thanking its kind 
and able superintendent, and his obliging assistant, for 
making our short stay both pleasant and instructive. 
♦ . . e 
Indiarubber Pavement. — The authorities of th 
city of Basle intend re-paving their principal through- 
fares, and are now considering the material best 
suited for the purpose. In one street a trial was given 
to wood pavement, but somehow it does not give 
satisfaction. The decision therefore turns upon asp- 
halte or Indiarubber. The latter was invented by 
the German engineer Busse, in Linden, near Hanover, 
and was first practically used, about fifteen months 
ago, for paving the roadway over the Goethe bridge 
in Hanover, which required about 1,000 square metres 
of material. This first experiment proved so suc- 
cessful, that during the present year another street 
in Hanover was paved with Indiarubber, to the ex- 
tent of 1,500 square matres. Berlin is already con- 
sidering the advisability of availing itself of the same 
pavement, and has given it a fair trial by laying it 
down over a considerable distance near the Lutzow 
bank, which example is being followed by Hamburgh. 
The Indiarubber pavement is said to combine great 
elasticity with the hardness of stone, to be completely 
noiseless and to suffer neither from cold nor hot weather. 
Moreover, it is not slippery like asphalte, and is more 
durable. — Indiarubber and Gutt apercha Journal. 
* From actual measurement the plant is as follows: — 
Height to top of leaves 20 feet, circumference round 
the bole at base 8 feet. The head contains 21 
leave*, and several of those are 15 feot long and 
:t foot broad. The plant was only 6 inches high 
when planted out 16 months ago.— W. N. 
Ouk Coffee planters are threatened with further 
rivalry: California is, it seems, "going in" for 
coffee growing. The country is said to be per- 
culiarly favourable to the growth of the berry. 
A former president of Costa Rica, with a party 
of his countrymen, have purchased a tract of land 
near San Rafael, with the intention of forming a 
colony there : among other employments designed 
to be followed by the colonists is the cultivation 
of coffee. — South of India Observer, Jan. 5th. 
Peaches. — An enterprising planter of Coonoor, who 
has a number of choice Delaware peach trees on his 
estate, the fruit of which are exceedingly delicious, 
contemplates sending a consignment to Madras to 
be sold in the open market We have no doubt 
that our brethren, sweltering in the heat of the 
capital city will be glad to assuage their thirst 
with the luscious fruit, and that rupees will drop 
into the pockets of the planter. — South of India 
Observer, Jan. 5th. 
Vines. — At last there is good news for vignerons. 
The man who can effectually settle the phylloxera 
pest is as likely to make a fortune as if he got rid of 
Australian rabbits. Endless remedies have been 
advocated, but none of them can be said to have 
been effectual. A French chemist, M. Willot, now 
comes forward with a very simple remedy. He 
says that the phylloxera are killed by a solution 
of common salt, even though they are capable of 
resisting morphine, strychnine, curare, &c. It is 
well worth trying, only the chemist does not tell 
us whether salt would have an injurious effect 
upon the vines. — Australasian, Jan. 12th. 
A Patent foe Preparing Tea. — Patent has an 
Australian interest. You are a people of tea- 
drinkers. The "billy" can ought to be one of 
the charges on the national Australian shield in 
the distant future, when all the colonies are 
federated, and have arranged to live peaceably and 
neighbourly together. Tea ought to be an infusion, 
whereas many people make it a decoction. In 
other words they cook it. This extracts not only 
the theine — which is good and exhilarating — but 
the tannin, which is about as bad a thing as can 
be taken into the human stomach, particularly if 
you are partaking of animal food at the time. The 
patent in question is a new method of preparing 
tea, so as to avoid the tannin, and the process 
consists in neutralising the letter by spraying over 
the tea a solution of a suitable alkali. — Austral- 
asian, Jan. 12th. [Without a certain proportion of 
tannin tea would be '■- fusionless"; it is the excess 
of tannin brought out by boiling or long standing 
of water on the leaves which is injurious. — Ed.] 
Cevlon Tea in London. — This is how "Peri- 
patetic Planter," writing from London, in December, 
to the Indian Planters' Gazette, criticises our 
Ceylon staple: — 
The heavy offerings of Ceylons appear to have 
been too much for the market under present cir- 
cumstances, and prices have tumbled all along the 
line, except for lots with the special Ceylon character, 
which latter seems to be becoming rapidly any- 
thing but a characteristic of Ceylons. There is a 
marked weakness among teas between 10d- and Is 
3d, even at a penny decline on last week's rates. 
Teas for price are |d lower than last week. Though 
the finer grades are in small supply, the biddings for 
these have not been satisfactory. There has seldom 
been a more marked instance than this week offers, 
of teas being sacrificed on account of the particular 
date of the offerings. The general quality of the 
Ceylons offered was superior, as a rule, to much that 
has been brought forward of late, and in many cases 
it was voted " very desirable"; and yet the vision of 
X'mas ahead was two heavy a weight on buyers' 
Spirits to tempt them to bid up to value. 
