7 04 
THF TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April i, 1889. 
in supposing for a moment that I endeavoured 
to influence the Ceylon Government against the 
grant of lands for tobacco. On the contrary I 
have myself acquired lands in Matale, part of 
which I hope to see in tobacco at no distant 
date, and I hold shares in the Tobacco Company, 
floated by Messrs. Eutherford, Fraser, and others. 
Mr. Dickson labours under the disadvantage of 
having read only a review of the lecture and 
confessedly not the paper itself. 
What I pointed out as mischievous in its 
ultimate and permanent result to the colony was 
the system of cultivation said to be adopted by 
the tobacco growers of Sumatra and the thrift- 
less grain cultivators of Ceylon on the hills. 
Entire ranges of hill and stretches of beautiful flat 
land on which the lantana and iluk are now 
struggling for existence where luxuriant forests 
stood before, demonstrate to us amply the perma- 
nent evils resulting from a reckless use of land in 
the past, not to tolerate it in the island in the future. 
The husbandry of the Sinhalese which recognised 
neither drainage to prevent wash nor fertilizers to 
restore the losses to the soil is answerable for the 
existing state of things. And the tobacco planter 
of Sumatra is said to be converting forests primeval 
into ready money in this fashion, abandoning the 
lands after a crop or two. Have I spoken too 
soon or out of place, in sounding a note of warn- 
ing on the eve of the enterprise in Ceylon ? 
While forest land was abundant and the country 
was unopened this system of cultivation may 
have been permitted or tolerated. But one can 
hardly say it is to be desired in the Ceylon of 
today. It may be remembered that about the 
time I read my paper in Matale a German syndi- 
cate, as it was stated, had applied for land in 
the neighbourhood, for tobacco growing : so that 
while I was discussing the suitability of our soil 
for this product among others grown in Ceylon, 
from tea down to arecanut and pepper, I in- 
cidentally referred to the destruction in Sumatra 
of magnificent forests, only for the sake of se- 
curing one or two crops ; and I expressed a hope that 
we may take to heart the lesson before us, taught 
by the chena cultivators of Ceylon. It will be seen 
on reference to my lecture that I pointed out on 
the contrary with approval the very intelligent 
methods adopted by the tobacco growers of Ceylon, 
who regularly and systematically manured their 
fields; and the editor describing in a footnote 
his own experience indorsed my views then, as he 
even now says in a footnote to Mr. Dickson's letter : 
' If this were enforced it would obviate the ob- 
jection which the senior editor shares with Mr. 
Barber." Mr. Dickson's argument also is nothingmore 
nor less in the end. This is what he says him- 
self : " Granted that tobacco is an exhausting crop, 
yet it pays hand over fist ; and with our railways 
and roads we should get plenty of bones and other 
manure such as they apply in America." Precisely. 
We have then only differed to agree in the end. 
I will now add as we are seriously contemplating 
cotton in Ceylon that wo shall be able to follow 
up with cotton such fields as may be found 
unsuitable for repeated crops of tobacco. And 
the cotton seed will afford us, found on the 
spot, without any cost of transport, one of the 
best known fertilizers in the world for our tobacco. 
Mr. Dickson has referred to American farming ; 
and I now Jenolose extract from the 1885 Report of 
the Commissioner of Agriculture for the United 
States, also a table by Sir J. B. Lawes showing 
the value of cotton seed as a fertilizer. 
In conclusion, I confess, I am in no way sorry for 
the little misapprehension which led to this corres- 
pondence, as it has brought into our concern the 
hearty support of so earnest and influential a 
colleague as Mr. Thomas Dickson. 
You have good-humouredly recommended me, 
Mr. Editor, to consign the correspondence of Mr. 
Dixon to the bowl of a tobacco pipe, and dispel 
it into thin air.'* 
Let us now all join in smoking the calumet 
of peace, and singing the praises of tobacco. It 
is no bad thing to ring a change on the hack- 
neyed Tea Deum Laudamus. — Yours faithfully, 
JAS. H, BARBER. 
(Extract referred to.) 
COTTON SEED. 
As the most indispensable requirement for the 
commencement of civilization of a people has been 
fertile soil, it ought to follow that a people possessing, 
in a product of agriculture — from a source therefore, 
inexhaustible — the most valuable fertilizing material, 
should be capable of the greatest progress. It is well 
said, " the more manure the more orop," but to no 
country can the reverse of the saying, "the more 
crop the more manure," be applied with as much 
force as to these United States of America. No 
crop is less exhaustive of the fertility of the soil 
than cotton, and none yields as a secondary product, 
a material so valuable and so rich in all the elements 
of plant-food as cotton seed. It naturally follows, 
however, as the valuable elements contained in this 
estimable product must have been derived from the 
soil, it devolves upon every patriotic, intelligent, and 
economic southern farmer to see to it that they be 
returned to it in order to prevent the exhaustion of 
its fertility. Chemists have demonstrated by analyses 
and farmers have corroborated the fact, that it is 
the most concentrated food for stock known, and after 
having been fed to animals, that the manure is richer 
in fertilizing matter than that resulting from any 
other food. 
M 
<s 0 • 
i.o'd 
"5 
It 
OS 
a 
Ss 
"S «• 
^ a 
a o-g 
Food. 
!>, 
a 9. 
o 
0 0. . 
Total d 
Total 
mat1 
Potas! 
Nitrog 
Value 
from 
per ct. 
per ct. 
per ct. 
per ct. 
per ct. 
Cotton-Seed 
Cake 
89'0 
8'00 
7-00 
3-12 
6-50 . 
§27-86 
Linseed Cake 
88-0 
7-00 
4-92 
1-65 
4-75 
19-72 
Eape Cake... 
Beans 
89-0 
8-00 
5-75 
1-76 
5-00 
21-01 
84-0 
300 
2-20 
1-27 
4-00 
15-75 
Peas 
84 5 
2-40 
1-84 
0-96 
3-40 
13-38 
Corn-Meal... 
88-0 
1-30 
1-13 
035 
1-80 
6-65 
Wheat 
85-0 
1-70 
1-87 
0-50 
1-80 
7-08 
Oats 
86-0 
2-85 
1-17 
0-50 
2-00 
7-70 
Wheat Bran 
86-0 
6-60 
7-95 
1-45 
2-55 
14-59 
Clover Hay.. 
84-0 
7'50 
1-25 
1-30 
2-50 
9-154 
Meadosv Hay 
84-0 
6-00 
0-88 
1-50 
1-50 
6-43 
Wheat Straw 
84-0 
5-00 
0-55 
0-65 
0-60 
2-68 
Oat Straw... 
83-0 
5-50 
0-48 
0-93 
0-60 
2-90 
Rutabagas . 
11-0 
0-68 
0'13 
0-18 
0'22 
0-91 
Common Tur- 
nips 
8-0 
0-68 
O'll 
0-29 
0-18 
0-86 
Irish Pota- 
toes 
24'0 
1-00 
0-32 
0-43 
0'35 
1-50 
[Go ahead with tobacco, if we are assured, that the 
land, when exhausted, is duly manured. — Ed.] 
* If that were all, smoking would be a comparatively 
unobjectionable practioe to non-smokers. But the 
smoke is inhaled, rolled round the smoker's salivary 
glands, and after touching the gullet and windpipe 
(possibly diseased) is ejected with the vitiated air 
from the lungs, to be breathed again by innocent 
non-swo kers, including ladies ! Analyze the practice 
and see. Of the value of tobacco as a soothing 
narcotice most valuable in certain formB of disease, 
we have the highest opinion. But gentlemen do not 
usually take their medicine in public or force their 
nighbours to share it with them.— Ed. 
