June i, 1881.] 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
33 
that patience is required. After they are in bearing 
order, there is no reason, should the demand for 
coconut oil be so great as at present, why the specula- 
tion should do otherwise than pay. The nuts ought 
to be planted at least fourteen feet apart. Roughly speak- 
ing 100 trees per acre can be relied upon. Reckoning 
upon 60 nuts for each tree, per annum, this gives 
6,000 nuts per acre : that is about 1 ton of copperah. 
Many people might say this is below the mark : on 
the average it is not much so. The price giveu for 
copperah by the principal merchants in Levuka varies 
i'rom £9 to £12 per ton." The estimate of the time 
for the trees bearing profitably — 4 to 5 years -seems 
to me a mistaken sanguine one. I believe the pioneers 
of coconut planting in the Jaffna peninsula entertained 
the same delusive hope, and estimated their profits 
accordingly ; but they were painfully deceived, for it 
was rare to fiud a tree attain a paying development 
under about twenty years, and it was no wonder, 
therefore, that the origiual planters of coconut, estates 
in Jaffna lost their all before they derived paying 
returns from them. Mr. Anderson closes his remarks 
on the productions of Fiji as follows, and I would 
recommend his opinion to the authorities of Ceylon 
as an example: — "Were the future Government of 
the island to consider that the planters aro the main- 
stay of prosperity— for if not they, who? — and if 
throwing aside all private hobbies and unbiassed opini- 
ons, they were to regard the interest of the planters 
as the interest of the country, time would not be long 
in deciding whether or not the isles of Fiji are to be 
considered as pearls of goodly value." These few ex- 
tracts will convince your readers how much of interest 
to them they will find in Mr. Anderson's book which 
has special relation to their own experience ; but, apart 
from that, the writer's remarks on the ethnology of 
the South Sea islands would alone fully repay its 
perusal. — Our London Cor. 
Remedy for Recent Cold in the Head. — Rodolfo 
Rodolfi recommends, from personal experience, the 
chewing of two to three dried leaves of Eucalyptus 
globulus, as a soverign remedy for cold in the head 
and coryza, provided they are recent and not chronic. 
The effect is said to make itself felt decidedly in about 
half an hour. — Pharm. Zeit. 
Something for Mr. Benton.— To-day (Saturday) a 
swarm of bees took up their abode in an old gin 
case at No. 4, Park Street. The gin case had been 
converted into a pigeon house ; the pigeons, however, 
politely retired, and left the bees in undisputed pos- 
session. They are of the ordinary size, somewhat 
smaller, and darker than the ordinary hive bee at 
home. Whether they will remain and occupy the 
dove-cot has yet to be seen. At present they are all 
in and seem contented. — Cor. 
Date Coffee. — There appears to be no end to the 
inventive genus of some people, and many of them 
seem to have made a ' dead set ' upon coffee. We 
have had the celebrated pelatos coffee, which was 
simply baked acorns ; more recently date stones have 
made their appearance in the London market under 
the title of dale coffee. Yet another instance comes 
before us in the shape of "a preparation of fruit," un- 
der which name a foreign gentleman has obtained a 
patent for a preparation " closely resembling Mocha 
coffee." The fruit of the Catatonia Siliqua, commonly 
known as carob beans or locust-pods, aud vulgarly 
as Bussian tigs, is roasted and ground into powder, 
and is then mixed with a certain proportion of the 
roasted aud ground seeds of Vicia Saliva, i. e., tares. 
An infusion of this mixture may be use as a bever- 
age, and if it is taken with a large quantity of ima- 
gination, it will closely resemble Mocha coffee. — Plant- 
era* Gazette. 
(From April 18 to April 23.) 
MANURES FOR COFFEE PLANTATIONS. 
An important correction has to be made in our 
remarks on Mr. A. Ross's experiments with specially 
prepared artificial manures. Instead of R70 per ton 
being the cost, it should be, as most of our readers 
will have guessed, R70 per acre ; but this is calcu- 
lating on an application of not less than 1 lb. per 
tree, or fully half-a-ton per acre. This special man- 
ure, therefore, including cost of carriage and of appli- 
cation, is equal to R140 per ton ; but, if it adds from 
3 to 4 cwt. per acre to the crop ensuring a steady 
return of 5 and 6 cwt. per acre, Mr. Ross is right in 
saying that it will pay him well. It is a significant 
fact that more than one planter and visitor to the 
young districts have lately remarked to us that wher- 
ever coffee has been manured there the blossom has 
set satisfactorily. On one well-known Dikoya pro- 
perty, we believe, the experienced superintendent 
shews the difference between manured and unmanured 
coffee in this respect, on the same field. Neverthe- 
less the proprietors who, at this time of day— afte'- 
two most trying seasons— can face an expenditure of 
R70 per acre for manure are few and far between. 
In many cases within our knowledge, the total ex- 
penditure on estates which have been kept clean, 
has been reduced to R50 rjer acre. In other cases 
where similar rigid economy might be expected, the 
outlay has risen to R80, simply because, as the man- 
agers say, money so supplied so irregularly, that the 
labour force became comparatively disorganized, and 
it became impossible to get work done so exactly 
and steadily as would, otherwise have been the case. 
This should be a warning to over-zoalous agents and 
bankers : if the funds are to be supplied at all, far 
better to do so every three or four months, than 
delay for six, and even eight months, and so add 
twenty to thirty rupees to the cost of upkeep per 
acre. As regards manuring, it is e ndent that every- 
thing depends on the fitness of the particular appli- 
cation for the soil operated on. Until careful ana- 
lyses and experimental stations in every district are 
established, a great deal of money must be wasted 
by planters, for it is not everyone who can arrange 
for analyses and the preparation of special manures 
on their own account, like the proprietors of Vent- 
ure and Aluwihari. 
THE HOT SEASON IN COLOMBO. 
The correspondent who addressed us the other day, 
and his colleague who challenged the accuracy of our 
article, will be interested in the following return 
which has been courteously furnished to us from the 
office of the Survey or-G-eneral :— 
Maximum temperature of the air registered from 
January 1870 to April 23rd 1881. 
In 1870 
91.0 
30th March. 
1871 
90.0 
21st April and 9th May-, 
1872 
90.0 
13th and 14th May. 
1S73 
91.0 
1st May. 
1874 
91.5 
19th April. 
1875 
95.0 
3rd February. 
1876 
90.6 
22nd April. 
1877 
94.6 
16th February. 
1878 
93.7 
13th April. 
1879 
90.5 
26th January. 
1SS0 
90.8 
26th and 26th April. 
1881 
91.2 
7th February, 14 aud 16th 
March, and on the 12th. 
12 
[1099.9 
14th and 16th April. 
Averag 
e— 91.66 
