i 4 3 THE TROPICAL 
to comfirm the former belief, as regarded those sub- 
stances, but the results were very different with the 
insoluble phosphates of lime, which on an average of 
several hundreds of tests were found only 7 per cent 
less effective than the soluble phosphates. It was 
then objected that the Aberdeen lands being de- 
ficient in lime, it was probably the lime, and not t he 
phosphate, that effected the increase of crop. Mr. 
Jamieson at once admitted that the objection was 
tenable, till the results were confirmed by further ex- 
periments on land that bad already sufficient lime in 
its composition to render the tests of phosphate more 
independent. To this end, two fresh experimental 
stations were established in different parts of England . 
The fame experiments were repented in the Lothians, 
under the auspices of the Highland Society, with 
results even more favourable to the use of insoluble 
phosphates, than those obtained by Mr. Jamieson. The 
question is one of nearly as much importance, to 
the Ceylon planter, as to the British farmer, and its 
settlement will he impatiently waited for by the students 
of scientific cultivation. If Mr. Jamieson succeeds in 
fully proving his case, it will enable the cultivator 
to supply his crop-bearing plants, of all kinds, with 
the necessary amount of phospbatic manure, at a very 
much lower price than the substances hitherto in use 
bears. It would be presu mptuous in one who is ignorant 
of the A. B. C. of Agricultural Chemistry to offer an 
opinion, where authorities disagree, but my sympathy 
is with the man who questions nature, for the advant- 
age of the public, and I wish Mr. Jamieson well 
through it. 
INDIAN TEA IN AUSTRALIA. 
A correspondent write* : — " Indian tea growers and 
shippers must not be discouraged by the negative 
results of the shipment of Indian tea to Sydney. It 
is the old story of the Pearls and the members of 
the Porcine tribe. I am myself an old Australian, 
and remember the time — before my palate became 
educated — when nothing but the "Post and Bail 
Variety of Tea " was enjoyable to me. " Post and 
Rail Tea," thus called, b cause of the quantity of 
timber that would be floating in the quart j)ot in 
which the camp brew had been made. We really 
did enjoy it, for we knew no better. It must have 
left the importers an immense margin of profit, such 
a margin as they certainly would not make on really 
good tea. The Australian storekeeper who retails tea 
buys on credit from the importers. Long credit, 
too. Mostly Post and Rail Tea is good enough for 
him. Why should be look out for better ? Why, at 
much loss of profit, educate the palate of his cus- 
tomers ? If that cargo of Indian tea had been sold 
and parcelled out to tea-drinking New South Wales, 
not another stick of Post and Rail would have beeii 
sold again. But the time is near when soon the 
Australians will drink better tea. A little organisa- 
tion, a few samples judiciously distributed, and the 
days of Post and Rail are numbered: Why not pre- 
sent a chest or two of sound Indian tea to one or 
another of the temperance leaders in the colony ?— 
Home and Colonial Mail, May 13th. 
QUEBRACHO WOOD. 
(Journal of thi Society of Arta.) 
Mons. F. Rheui has lately communicated a paper on 
the "Quebracho Wood" to the Sociitt Industridte du 
Rouen, from which the following particulars are ex- 
tracted :— This wood belongs to the family of the 
Asclepiades, and comes from America. Being very 
hard, and composed of a great quantity of interlaced 
fibres, the tannin it contains is different from that of 
chestnut or of oak. Gelatine precipitates this tannin | 
AGRICULTURIST. [July i, 1881. 
out of a water solution with a flesh colour, while salts 
of protoxide of iron give an ash-grey precipitate, and 
the peroxyde salts a dirty greenish colouration. When 
boiled with weak sulphuric acid, the tannin is not 
converted into gallic acid. According to a Oerman 
chemist, quebracho wood contains 18 per cent, of tannic 
acid. The back of this wood contains an alkaloid 
analogous to quinine. Extract of quebracho, now much 
used iu wool dyeing, giving a yellow shade with a tin 
solution. It gives even shades, resembling those of 
cutch, if used with bichromate of potash, but its prin- 
cipal use is for obtaining blacks, for which the wool is 
given first a bottom of the extract, then passed through 
iron, and dyed with the quebracho ; this, iu these 
conditions, can replace cutch. Solutions of quebracho 
wood, or extract, will only keep limpid if heated to a 
certain temperature, but get turbid on cooling. Dyeing 
experiments, with the dry quebracho extract, as manu- 
factured by a French firm, in comparison with cutch, 
have proved the former of more value, since, with a 
lower price, it possesses a greater richness of colour- 
ing matter. There series of trials were made : one, 
by passing the cotton prepared in a quebracho or 
cachou bath through bichromate of potash ; the second, 
through iron ; and, in the third, the patterns were 
passed through iron and then chromed. In all cases the 
same results were obtained, showing the advantage of 
the quebracho over cutch, in spite of a slightly more 
greyish shade of the colours obtained with the former. 
Tbe same results have been got by printing mordants 
on calico, ageing, dunging, and dyeing with quebracho 
extract or cutch ; in all cases the quebracho shades 
being identical with those of cutch, not only for the tine 
of colour, but also in regard to fastness. 
EXPERIMENTAL STATIONS AND MANURING. 
From the Aberdeen Joimial received by last mailweex- 
tract the following from the reporfclof the Annual General 
Meeting" of the Aberdeenshire Agricultural Associa- 
tion . The committee report for last year : — " The ex- 
periments for last season, which comprised oats, turnips, 
and grass, have on the whole been very successful, 
and yield new and valuable information, for which re- 
ference must be made to Mr. Jamieson's elaborate and 
valuable report. 
"The conclusions indicated in Mr. Jamieson's first 
reports regarding the action of manures on turnips 
have been now so fully confirmed by repeated experi- 
ments that they may be accepted by farmers as a guide 
to the economical and effective application of manures. 
"The conclusions suggested by the experiments on 
oats and grass during the last two years remain to 
be verified or modified by further experiments in com- 
ing seasons. 
"The two stations in England have not entailed 
serious expense on the Association, and will probably 
be continued by the localities. The information yielded 
by these stations confirms the conclusions arrived at 
from our experiments in this county. It must be 
highly satisfactory to the members to learn that the 
example set by this Association has been followed on 
a more extensive scale by a similar association in the 
county of Sussex. It is hardly necessary to point 
out that the more numerous the stations conducted 
systematically, the wider and more reliable the in- 
formation gained for the benefit of all. The com- 
mittee again desire to express their sense of the great 
value of Mr. Jamieson's labours, and of the devotion 
he applies to this most important and valuable branch 
of scientific investigation. " 
The Marquis of Huntly said : "I hear that on al 
sides there is but one opiuion that our able chemist 
has held his own, not only in the opinions he has 
expressed, but in the newspaper warfare to which 
he has been subjected." The first conclusion we ais 
