July i, 1881.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
be sold in Amsterdam about July. For clay laborers 
y 2, 719 was paid. The supply of labor was satisfactory. 
The Ledgerianas grafted on sueeirubras are becoming ex- 
ceptionally hardy. They have a different shape to 
plants grown from seed. The lowest branches of 
the grafts grow much more vigorously than those of 
seed plants, and the trees on this account assume a 
handsome pyramidal form. After they had stood for 
one year in the open the medium height was 0"88 
meter, the diameter of the crown 0 60 meter, and 
tlie circumference of the stem 0 069 meter. They 
beat the cuttings planted at the same time ir. the 
same gardens, which had a mean height of 0 62 meter, a 
crown-diameter of 0"37 meter, and a stem-circuinference 
of 0 04 meter. Since the catching of insects and the 
cutting off of branches where their eggs could be 
laid the Helopeltis Antonii has not been noticed at 
Tertasari. The director of the cinchona enterprise 
returned to Batavia on 31 December from his 
journey to British India. His observations on 
the cinchona culture there will form the subject 
of a separate report. Various modifications in the 
method of cultivating plants, followed in British India, 
and which appeared of practical advantage, have been 
introduced by way of experiment into the cinchona 
establishments and so far succeed very well. The 
method of liar vesting by which the bark is taken 
from the living tree in portions, the tree being pre- 
served, will also be more generally practised : it 
was teen that the cinchona trees on the Nilgiris 
had borne this operation already for a long period 
without great harm. The chemical analyses which are 
being performed will be reported on in the next 
quarter. An analysis of some British India cinchona 
; barks proved that barks of the same variety but from 
very different places of growth have the same yield 
of alkaloid. Of importance is the result of an analysis 
of succirubra bark renewed after scraping and two 
years old. The same alteration which results from 
' the practice of Mclvor's method of partial stripping, 
viz. increase of quinine and diminution of cinchoni- 
dine, was also observed in the case of this renewed 
bark. J. C. Bernelot Moens, 
Dir. Government Cinchona Enterprise. 
Bandoeng, 4th April 1881. 
The number of plants in the nurseries and in the open 
on 31st March is as follows :— Nurseries : 278,390 Ledg. 
(including 8,240 cuttings and grafts), 248,950 sue, 
83,000 of. ; open : 535,130 Ledg. (including 60,000 
cuttings and grafts, but not counting the more or less 
6,700 original Ledgerianas), 601,100 Cal. and Bass., 
495,990 sue. and calop., 410,520 of , 16,700 lane, 
260 micr. : total 2,670,040. 
THE CEYLON HANDBOOK AND DIRECTORY 
FOR 1880-81 : 
acregae under old and new products on 
Plantations in Ceylon. 
The Liberian CoOTee Bmtereriss in Ceylon. 
Among the references to our Handbook of a kindly 
ioraplimentary nature which we have recieved (and 
published, from time to time) are some of more than 
a mere passing interest to which we have too long 
lelayed to refer. For instance, the Chairman of the 
Planters' Association has favoured us with some valu- 
able criticism of the mode we ventured to adopt in 
estimating the area cultivated with new products on 
coffee plantations, as well as on other subjects. Mr. 
I Wall, writing soon after the volume appeared, 3aid :— j 
" I turn to account a few spare moments, be- 
fore leaving tho office, in a friendly criticism of I 
your solution of the extremely difficult problem 
of reducing the new products planted amongst 
coffee to their respective acreage's. 1 venture to sug- 
gest that, however unfair it may seem to retain the 
original acreage of the coffee, after it has been all, 
or part planted with cinchona, or cacao, it is even 
more unfair, and quite confusing to reduce it. In/act, 
it is not reduced. The productive power may be, 
and no doubt, in most cases, is reduced, but not 
the acreage. Moreover, the breadth of land actually 
planted with cacao or cinchona amongst coffee, is not 
reducible to an equivalent acreage. The case in which 
100 acres of coffee is planted up between the rows 
with cacao, or cinchona, is not represented statistically 
by any division of that acreage between the two ! 
After you have assigned a proportion, say 70 acres 
for the coffee, and 30 for the other product, the fact 
remains that you have no such acreages at all, but 
100 acres of both combined. However the tables may 
seem to be simplified by such a proportioning of the 
two, they are in fact complicated very much thereby ; 
for it may and most probably will happen, that, in 
some cases, the 70 acres of coffee will disappear, and 
the 30 acres of cacao or cinchona will become 10u 
without the planting of a single additional plant. 
Some people are planting wide in order to retain 
both products in cultivation ; whilst others are plant- 
ing the new product close to take the place of and 
entirely supersede the coffee. Now, I foresee that 
future statistics of production will be seriously hampered 
by the system of apportioning the total acreage be- 
tween the two; for it cannot be expected that the 
cacao or cinchona planted in the coffee, will yield pre- 
cisely, or even nearly, as it would do if it occupied 
the ground alone. The produce returns, hereafte. 
based on such a system, will be inconsistent and con- 
fusing. 
"You will say, perhaps, that I ought not to criti- 
cise a system without being prepared to propose 
a better, but I think it quite fair. I hope you will 
think so — to point out the consequences likely to en- 
sue upon your plan, even though no better were offered ! 
" I have not given sufficient attention to the sub- 
ject; but, as far as I see at present, I think it would 
be better to have 3 columns instead of 2 — one with 
coffee only ; one coffee and cinchona or cacao ; and 
a third with the number of growing trees of the 
new product. For example 
Coffee. Coffee and cacao. Cacao trees. Total. 
Estate ... 30 70 2,100 100 
acres acres acres 
This would give the actual and unmistakeabJe statis 
tics. In the case of cinchona, I thiuk that the ad- 
ditional figures which would be necessary to distin- 
guish between the large and small descriptions, would 
be amply repaid, thus : — 
Acres coffee 
Acres and cin- Trees succi- Trees Total 
coffee, chona. rubra, &c. officinalis, acres. 
Estate... 40 60 36,000 90,000 100 
"lam sure that with your well-trained mind you 
cannot feel soiisfied with the compromise of appor- 
tionment in the case of mixed products ; nor with 
the " allowances'' you have had to make for sup- 
posed failures in ihe case of cinchona and cacao. 
Agaiust both these solutions of the difficulty \«m 
mind must have revolted. For, aft»r all, the acraiges do 
not really represent in the one case, nor the allowances 
in the other, any true statistical data. As regards the 
latter difficulty, I should propose to class all plants, 
whether of cinchona or cacao, under 6 month* old. alonj; 
with nurseries ; and take statistical account only of 
plants that have been out in the field over 6 months. 
My this means, failures may be put out of the question, 
because supplies arc never counted. As these do but 
(ill the vacated places of plants already taken into 
account, they are never afterwards added as new plants, 
