752 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [May i, 1889. 
Mr. W. B. Hudson, Secretary of the Behar 
Planters' Association, has gone on a voyage of dis- 
covery to Burmah, to find out if that rising young 
country can provide a means of livelihood for the 
numerous embryo planters who are now over- 
crowding Behar with precious little chance of ever 
obtaining enough to keep them decently. More 
power to your elbow, Paddy. — Indian Planters' 
Gazette. 
The Ceylon Planters' American Tea Com- 
pany.— We call attention to the Prospectus and Cir- 
cular of this Company issued as a Supplement today 
and have to urge on all who are interested in the 
opening of new markets for our teas to do their 
best to support the Company. Possibly many of 
our readers may have already taken shares, but as 
we urge in our Overland Summary, it is the concern 
of all connected with our Tea Industry to wish 
well and, ' if possible, take part in the Company. 
The prospects of a remunerative business seem very 
good, apart from the indirect benefits. 
The American Tea Company. — A planter 
writes : — " Now is our time to show that we have 
the interests of Ceylon at heart, and in advocating 
the enrolment of the whole planting body as 
members of this Company is it not to the interest 
of every individual member that our teas should 
be better known and demand for same increased?" 
Our Exports this week do not show much 
movement in coffee, cocoa, cardamoms, coconut oil, 
coir, or other palm produce, plumbago, ebony and 
minor exports, the additions being very trifling or nil. 
The only shipments worth speaking of have been 
about 157,000 lb. cinchona bark ; over 680,000 )b. 
tea; 30,000 lb. cinnamon (bales) and 28,136 chips. 
The total of cinchona bark is now only 700,000 lb. 
in excess of last year at same date and much 
below previous years. 
The World's Consumption of Coffee and 
Tea Compared. — There was an error in the figures 
given in a letter on this subject yesterday, inasmuch 
as our correspondent gave the consumption for coffee 
in non-producing countries, while we added that 
for tea all over the world. Taking the figures 
given in our estimates in Directory— as correct we 
believe as any to be got, — the comparison will run as 
follows : — 
Total consumption of coffee 
throughout the world including 
that in producing countries 1,917,440,000 lb. 
Do. do. of tea 1,357,500,0001b. 
Excess of coffee ... 559,940,000 lb. 
We may be quite sure that the proportions will 
by-and-bye be reversed. 
Upcountry Cows. — We heard a very good 
and authentic story the other day, as illustrating 
the advance of civilization and the presence of 
native 'cuteness in our planting districts. In one 
of these not 100 miles from Nawalapitiya, a Colombo 
lady with young children took up residence in an 
estate bungalow and one of the first enquiries was 
about the milk supply. The appu went off on 
an exploring expedition and returned with a bottle 
of mill; f-aying ajman near boutiques on the roadside 
below, said he could supply any number of bottles 
' missis' wanted and for '20 cents a bottle too. The milk 
was different from the Colombo article — put down 
to different feeding of the cow, &c. — but it seemed 
wholesome enough and the children got on all 
right (or some days, until it struck the 'missis' 
that she ought to know more about the cows that 
yielded ho freely, where they were kept, how fed, 
&c. The uppu went down again with strict orders 
to spy out the land and ho returned erelong with 
the nowH that "there were no cowb at all: the 
.bottles of milk wore prepared from preserved tin milk, 
of which there was an unlimited supply in the 
boutiques." Tableau 1 
The Auerbach Quinine Factory, we understand 
has just secured an important contract from the 
Austrian Government for the supply of quinine. 
This contract was allotted to the factory in question 
after a thorough and most careful comparative ex- 
amination of tbe purity of its quinine, and the 
Vienna agent for the Auerbach Works was informed 
by the authorities charged with the analyses that 
the samples submitted by him had given complete 
satisfaction. The Auerbach Factory has also secured 
contracts from the Kussian and Dutch Governments 
this season. — Chemist and brnggint, March 23rd. 
We understand that apparent Success hag 
attended the application! to trees affected with Green 
Bug of a spray of carbolic soap and water followed 
immediately by a powrlering of lime. Our iufortuant 
says that neither the soap and water nor the powder- 
ed "lime used separately acts so Sitisfactrily as the 
two together. He puts half a coconut shell of soft 
carbolic soap to an ordinary bucket of water and ap- 
plies the liquid with an ordinary garden S3ringe to 
the under part of leaves upwards from beneath. The 
powdered li me is likewise thrown upwards from below 
and adheres to the wet undersides of the leaves. We 
can vouch for the bona fides of our informant, though 
neither he nor ourselves can vouch for the recipe as 
a certain remedy, but he is sufficiently satisfied with 
the effect hitherto obtained to persevere with the 
treatment. Couriering the fatal nature of the pest 
where it has had undisturbed possession of the trees, 
we think our planting friends would do well to try 
the remedy. The cost of soft carbolic soap is about 
£35 per ton. — Independent. 
Coffee in Mysore and Coorg. — Mr. J. S. 
Middleton has just passed through Colombo on 
one of his periodical visits, this time on his way 
home after spending some time on his big property 
in Mysore. Mr. Middleton ha^ on this occasion 
paid special attention to his coffee — some 300 acres 
of which are doing very well. He maintains .that 
throughout Coorg and Mysore, coffee continues to 
flourish most satisfactorily, and he strongly advises 
Ceylon men — he is an old Ceylon planter of the 
" fifties " himself — with " coffee," not to lose heart, 
but to do their best for the old staple in the full 
hope of a good return. We know there are some 
fair coffee crops to be gathered this year in Cey- 
lon. One lu^ky proprietor in a high district 
expects 4,000 bushels, a crop which will fully 
justify his reluctance to supplant the coffee with 
tea. To plant coffee with fresh seed after the 
Mysore fashion, in Ceylon, Mr. Middleton con- 
siders " an experiment well worth tryin ." 
Salt for Farmers. — As we are only anxious 
to ascertain the truth regarding the value of salt as 
a manure, we readily copy the following paragraph : — 
Tbe increase of the salt tax affects our meals and 
our industries. Salt is required for the formation of 
blood and various animal genies. Salt is given to 
cattle to prevent rot, scabid, intestinal worms and other 
diseases. It improves their appetite and promotes the 
power of digestion aud moJifies their natural timidity. 
It can be given in moderate quantities twice or thrice 
a week, Although salt is beneficial to tbe higher 
animals, it is decidedly pernicious to the lower orders. 
It operates fatally on cold-blooded animals, and it is 
therefore used to destroy worms, newts, and insects. 
Common salt is largely applied asmauure for cereals and 
some of the root crops. Salt is also a good manure for 
coconut plants. The antiseptic properties which common 
salt possesses regulate the decomposition of farmyard 
manure. It is therefore a farming economy to cover the 
ready-made or sufficient'y fermented heaps of dung 
with a layer of talt when the dung cannot be carted 
at once, in order to prevent the loss of valuable fer- 
tilizing constituents of this dung by too prolonged a 
fermentation, and at the same time adding salt itself 
to the value of the manure. — Industrialist. 
What we now want is a series of careful experi- 
ment in Ceylon. 
