9 2 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July i, 1881. 
In the Brazilian province of Bahia the juice of a 
eert'in climber has been fou d to yield a wax from 
which excellenc candles cnn be made and, from the 
re sinou-" bark, candles are obtainable which rival 
spermaceti in whiteness and brilliancy of light. — S. A. 
Journal.. 
Tea 'N Ceylon. — Mr. Magor (partner in the well, 
known Calcutta House of Messrs. Williamson, Magor & 
Co.) has been on a short visit to Ceylon. He spent a 
fortnight in visiting the Yakdessa .md Ambegamuwatea 
districts, Dikoya, Dimbula and Hewaheta. He was much 
pleased and rather surprised to see our progress in 
tea and thought a great deal of our prospects where 
the tea was planted on fairly good land, but thought 
it was a mistake to plant on chena or old worn out land. 
Sun stroke and Diet. — I)r F. T. Oswald writes 
as follows about sunstroke in the Popular Science 
Monthly, for April last : — 'To abstain temporarily 
from animal; food taking refrigerating diet such as veget- 
ables, fruits, &c, counteracts the effects of a high 
atmospheric temperature, but. the calorific influence of 
meat and fat, combined with solar heat and bodiT 
exertion overcomes the organic power of res stance ; 
the pyretic blood changes produce congest on of the 
brain and sometimes instant death. I venture the 
assertion that in 19 out of 20 cases of comatose sun- 
stroke it will be found that the victims were persons 
mho had gone to work in the hot sun alter a meal 
Qf greasy viands. One to two p. m. is the sunstroke 
hon r. 
Tea and Tea. — There are frequeut complaints from 
" the Liine" as to the quality of the China tea sent 
aver to this country. There is a marked deteriora- 
tion oven as compared with the inferior quality of 
eome of last season's shipments. China tea of a kind 
has been sold as low as 2|d per lb. , a price which 
we venture to thiuk is sufficiently indicative of the 
kind of rubbish which now finds its way into the 
market. Indian tea, although prices are not encourag 
ing to growers, is becoming more and more popular 
among consumers. Grocers are directing attention to 
it, and now it is the rule to see trade announcements 
In regard to blends of Indian and China, while not 
a few retailers sell pure Indian t a, and think that 
the exigencies of the timeB demand that they should 
announce the fact in large type. — H. & C. Mail,. 
Mining Industry. — No better method of devel 
oping on a large scale the mining resources of any 
country has yet been discovered than by the forma- 
tion of public companies. The "Benighted" Pre- 
sidency has been singn'arly fortunate in securing a 
large share of the confidence of London capitalists in 
re*p;>ct of the Wynaad and Nil^iri gold regions, no 
less ihati sixteen Companies having been formed for 
the purpose of gold mining in the district of Devala 
alone. T is will bring a great deal of foreign capital 
into that Presidency, and if go'd quartz be turned 
out in a fair proportion of the mines in payiug quanti- 
ties, a new era will have commenced there, both 
for capital and labour — Times of India. 
Yield of Rubber Trees.— The twelfth volume of 
the Encyclopaedia £> itannica just published contains an 
article on " India rubber," by Messrs. E. M. Holmes 
and T- Holas. We sh;ill give th s ere long, but 
meanwhile wc give the figures for yield of caoutcbone 
from different varie ies of trees. Para ( ffe.wa Bra- 
tilienxk / yields 6 ounces in 3 days, the juice yield- 
ing generally 32 per cent of its weight as caoutchouc. 
For Oeara [Manihot Qlaziow) tbe yield is not given. 
Central American (Cnsli loa elasi.ica) : a tree 20 to 30 
feet high to its first branches is expected to yield 20 
gallons of milk, curb, gallon giviug about 2 lb. rubber. 
Assam rubber [Frcih elastica) : about, 20 oz. milk col- 
lected in August gives 15 oz. caourcnouc. but the 
percentage is sometimes so low as 10 per cent. From 
February to April the milk i= scantier but richer in 
caoutchouc. Borneo rubber ( Urceola elaxt'ca) yieh's sap 
i'i three years. Rangoon rubber {Chavanrie.nia, enrvlenla) 
yields 3| lb. at 7 years. This is certainly vtry en- 
couraging 
The Wax Palm in Pernambuco.— The Camanba 
palm {Copernicia chtfera) seem* to ^e a much more im- 
portant plant in some parts of Brazil than is geuerally 
supposed. In Pernambuco the plant is very abundant, 
and the uses to which it is put very numerous. The wood 
for instai ce, is u*ed for roofing both as beams or rafters, 
and as laths upon which to support the tiles ; the fruits 
are used for feeding cattle, and the leaves a>e used for 
making hats and mats. A valuable medicine is obtained 
from the roots, which has recently been brought to notice 
in this country. From the shoots or leaves a wax to ob- 
tained ; for this purpose they are cut before they unfold, 
dried in the sun, powdered and boiled, the wax ri-ingto 
the surface of the water. This wax. it is stated, is not 
produced in anything like the quantity 'hat it mght be. 
It is shown, in a recent report of Her Majesty's Consul 
at Pernambuco, that the export of this wax during 1875- 
76 amounted to 18,668 kilos, valued at i'7'8 ; in 1876-77 
to 171.980 kilos valued at £6,957 ; in 1877-78 it fell to 
80.482 kilos of the value of £3,168; and in 1878 79 to 
1,542 kilos valued at only £61. By far the la>ge«t portion 
of this wax finds its way to this country. It is shown 
that the decrease during the last year was due to the 
famine and drought which so Beverly crippled all industry 
in the province. It isnot a little remarkable t hat. atthe 
time when roasted date stones are proposed as a substi- 
tute for coffee, we should also learn that the stones or 
seeds of the Camanba palm, when roasted, are u*ed in 
Pernambuco as coffee.— Journal of the Society of Arts. 
The Degenrkacy or Indian Cattle. — The Indian 
Empire remarks on this subject :— If the inferior breed, 
we now find, were indigenous to the country, it m ; ght 
have been useless to complain. Bnt such is not the 
case. So far back as nearly seven centuries ago, Marco 
Polo, speaking of Bengal, which he evidently never 
visited, but wrote about from report, says: — "The 
people have oxen as tall as elephants, but not so big." 
At any ra'e, the A'/een Akhbarry mentions that very 
beautiful white oxen of great size and capable of carry- 
ing a load of 15 maunds were to be found in Sharifabad, 
the modern distriet of Bnrdwan. Nor is the description 
in the Ayeen A khburry improbable or exaggerated. To 
this day especially the districts of Hissar and Hurrianah 
iu Northern India are famous for the large size of their 
cows, which are sometimes used for draught purposes by 
the Commissariat Department, and are occasionally to 
be met with in the streets of Calcutta. Ke<ping in 
view the extremely varying conditions of soil and 
climate in Burdwan and those two districts of the North- 
West, we are decidedly of opinion that neither the soil 
nor the climate is responsible for the great deteriora- 
tion in the present breed of cattle in the Lower Provinces. 
The first step that should be taken to prepare and 
smooth the way for a fair chance to the improvement of 
the present breed of cattle ma<t obviously be to encour- 
age the cultivation of green crops which will yield a 
supply of the most nutritious fodder. When this first 
step has been taken and generally adopted, it will then 
be possible to give a fair chance to the physic •! revival 
a d fuller development of the present miserable breed. 
It will be time enough afterwards to attempt the im- 
provement of it by crossing it with better and more 
vigorous stock, imported from other parts of India, and 
even from other countries in the world, which excel in 
the size, physical strength, and milk-producing capa- 
city of their cattle. If onlv the economic value of this 
reform were once fully realised, it is probable that >ome 
earnest effort to bring it about would be undertaken. 
But it is not within the province of the G- veinment to 
initiate such an enterprise, nor is it within the scanty 
meatis of the agricultural classes to undertake it. It 
lies with the zemindars to take the matter up. 
