126 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[July r, 1881. 
the hope of its being advantageous I give it. Every 
one in Ceylon must have been struck with those odd 
imitations of vegetation in animated life shown in the 
stick insects, the leaf insects, and the flower insects. 
There 's no mistaking these, for they show clearly 
enough to be the work of some mischievous fun-loving 
imp, playing his fantastic tricks to puzzle Darwinians 
and Evolutionists generally. 
Now have we not got here the same imp of mir chief, 
or there may be more than one of them, practising 
on our scientists, say on the Dindigul scientist in 
particular, producing in flesh and blood and its etceteras 
exact imitations of the fungi sporidia-mycelia, et hoc 
yenus omne, down even to their destructiveness on the 
coffee tree; and all merely to get a "rise" out of a 
few eager scientists. I do not offer the theory at all 
to the scientists however. From experience, 1 know 
the stores of scorn they have stowed away in their 
cranial receptacles to be emitted on any one who 
ventures to promulgate a theory not emanating from 
their own fermenting noddles. 
I lay it with all humility before the unscientific 
public, glad, if they find it suit them, that they make 
what use of it they like, so that, one way or another, 
the happy result may be arrived of leaf disease never 
again. 
MANURE AND THE SETTING OF BLOSSOM. 
We learn that, in the case of a very carefully con- 
ducted series of observations on an estate in Dikoya, 
it was found that 60 per cent of the blossoms on 
manured land had set ; while on the unmanured por- 
tion of similar land no more than 14 per cent could 
be reckoned as safe ! 
INDIA-RUBBFR. 
The Director of the Botanic Garden, we now hear, 
has experimented on some of his Ceara rubber trees 
with satisfactory results both as to quality and 
quantity of milk. From one tree, it is said, the 
yield of milk was equal to three ounces of prepared 
caoutchouc of very superior quality, and this quantity 
of milk was taken without at all exhausting the avail- 
able supply. No doubt, the Director will be publish- 
ing the results of his work very shortly. 
Leaf Gathering and Destroying will never do. 
At great expense with a large force of labour you 
might clear the ground of an estate one day, and the 
next rt day find it just as much littered over with 
diseised leaves. One planter said he saw apparently 
a. regular cloud of spores or dust arise v. hen the 
coolies were gathering. The fall of leaf lasts for weeks 
sometimes, so the gathering would have to be almost 
daily work, or else by postponing it as some suggest, 
the greater part of the spores would be left behind. 
In one place where I saw the burning going on, I 
noticed that a great many trees had been burnt, and 
that was in their poor coffee too. If science can't be 
practical let it cease to teach. — Old Planter. 
Phylloxera and Hemileia. — The Melbourne Leader 
says: — "The best plan for subjecting vines infected 
with the phylloxera to the action of sulphide of carbon 
is that devised by M. Bourdon. He lays down a 
system of drains in which an air-current is set up. 
The sulphide is in this way disseminated so thoroughly 
that the whole subterranean atmosphere of the vineyard 
is thoroughly impregnated with the poison, and none 
of it is wasted. The expense of the drains is con- 
siderable, but the sulphide is economised, and the 
work is really done. It is certainly cheaper to go to 
a considerable expense in the thorough accomplishment 
of a result than to waste half the amount in an abortive 
attempt." Although the hemileia is a fungus and 
not an insect like the phylloxera, this treatment might 
prove efficacious as a remedy for the coffee leaf disease. 
To the Editor of the Ceylon Observer. 
COFFEE LEAF DISEASE. 
Sir, — I, for one, do not expect that a cure for 
this pest will be found through any local application. 
We have been bidden by our scientific advisers to 
burn, bury, or disinfect, all matters to which germs 
are or may be attached, but we should now be aware 
of the fact that if a coffee plant is constitutionally 
predisposed to an attack, it will be attacked if tkere 
were no* an affected leaf within fifty miles. Six 
years ago, I raised only one Liberian coffee plant 
from a handful of imported seed, in a part of the 
island where no coffee was grown ; yet, before it was 
six months old, it got leaf disease, which never left 
till about six months ago. It has flowered frequently 
during the la6t four years, but not one blossom set 
till last January, when it threw off the disease alto- 
gether, and now promises to give a moderate crop. 
I have since grown thousands on the same ground, 
and that wa* the only one that ever had a spot of 
disease. I believe that the germs are in the air, 
aud will inevitably reach the plant that is consti- 
tutionally suited to their growth, and that the only 
way in which a plant can be protected is through 
improving its tone, by some process to be yet dis- 
covered. —Yours truly, PLANTER. 
CURE FOR LEAF DISEASE IN FIJI. 
Belmont Plantation, Upper Rewa, Fiji, April 8th, 1881. 
Sir, — In your issue of January 20th I just notice, 
under the heading "Still They Come," a reprint from 
the Fiji Times, in which my name is mentioned as 
having discovered a "remedy "for coffee leaf disease. 
Now, although this heading does not contain a posit- 
ive slight, it implies a doubt, either of my assertion 
or of the veracity of your contemporary. Luckily, 
it will not alter the fact of my having succeeded in 
thoroughly and lastingly curing a considerable number 
of coffee trees, both Arabian and Liberian, of Hemileia 
vastatrix. The treatment was discontinued as long 
ago as July last, and the trees of both species have 
since grown three times the size, are in full spike 
(the Liberian) and splendid condition ; and though 
exposed to accidental re-infection from without (this 
district is full of disease) have up to this day re- 
mained entirely free of the pest. The nursery, made 
on old, infected ground, is entirely free of disease, as 
are also some self-sown seedlings, which have sprung 
up in various parts of the area once covered with 
coffee (some 15 acres) and destroyed by the Com- 
missioner for Coffee Leaf Disease early in March 1880. 
Although I am fully aware of the importance of my 
discovery to many coffee-growing countries, it was and 
is my ambition to operate in Fiji first, not for the 
purpose of making further experiments so much, as, 
firstly, because Fiji is the land of my adoption, and 
I have some personal interest in it, and, secondly, 
to gain an insight into certain administrative details 
connected with the treatment, on a smaller scale, 
before offering my services to the planters of Ceylon 
and neighbouring countries for so stupendous a task 
as those countries would present in the application 
of my own treatment or any other. 
What I have done I have accomplished through 
the outward application of a well-known factor, which 
material, so far from being dangerous to the hedth 
of the coffee tree, will, after doing duty against the 
disease, remain on the ground as manure. In my 
correspondence with the Government of Fiji, I have 
presented a rather high estimate of cost approaching 
£4 per acre. This may seem a large figure, but in 
reality is not so, the actual cost being represented 
