September i, 1881.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
ohona (such as Condaminia, pubescens, pitayensis) bas 
beeu thoroughly established by the success of the 
society's owu operations, and a coffee plantation is 
now being formed uuder the management of a skilled 
planter from Ceylon. But abovo all is this great 
fact, winch places this country beyond all other dis- 
tricts in South India, that thc?e lands are entirely 
free from malaria— unless, of course, lands are selected 
at the bottom of one of the valleys running into the 
plains. But on the plateau there are some thousands 
of acres of forest and grass as entirely free from 
fever influences as Coonoor and Ootacamund, or the 
Pulneys themselves. Rain falls in every month of 
the year, except February, and sometimes January. 
English vegetables grow excellently. English stores 
Carpenters come up from Cochin, their pay being 
one rupee a day ; but lime must b<> brought up from 
the low country, which is one of the drawbacks of 
the place. 
The scope and profits of cinchona growing are now 
being recognized. It is an enterprise particularly 
suited to a man who has a small income to enable 
him to keep going till his trees are big enough to 
produce the chemists' bark, who likes leisure for 
shooting, and is not to be worried by the ceaseless 
and minute superintendence that a coffee or tea garden 
requires. 
There is no place in South India whero a married 
man of small means, with a little capital, would do 
better than by taking a house at Kodekanal, on the 
Pulneys, and by purchasing a hundred acres of forest 
land and a hundred acres of grass land on the Kannan 
Dovans, wherewith to form a farmstead and a cin- 
chona plantation. 
At tho present moment the prices of cinchona bark 
are so high that it has been calculated by good 
authorities that an acre of land with a thousand 
trees on it, ten years old, can be worked to give a 
return of £100 per annum. These authorities also say 
that the value of tho best barks, which are brought 
to market for the manufacture of tho alkaloids, will 
never materially decrease. 
It is not necessary to wait ten years for a return, 
because from fonr to seven years old trees (according 
to growth), yield a bark that is known as druggists' 
bark, used for decoctions. The prices of the best 
kind of cinchona bark that is diverted to this pur- 
pose is now very high, and the thinning out of the 
plantation in its early years would quite certainly 
repay all outlay, and leave a large margin of profit. 
But there is a consensus of opinion that tho produc- 
tion of this druggists' bark may be overdone, and 
the planter must be prepared for this contingency. 
T! cost of purchasing such a block of forest and 
EMUS would, we understand, bo now in the early days 
of the society, about £3 per acre for forest, and £1 
an acre for grass land. 
Tho cost of opening 50 acre3 of the forest land will 
be approximately as follows for the first year: — 
£ s. d. 
Felling at £1 5s. the acre G2 10 0 
Pitting, lining, planting, &c, at £2 per 
1,000 pits 3,000 pits to tho acre ... 300 0 0 
Price of plants, at £1 per 1,000 ... 150 0 0 
Temporary buildings, paths, drains, 
tools, 4c, say 150 0 0 
Native superintendent, at £5 per mouth 110 0 ti 
722 10 0 
Add price of 100 aorcB forest land, £300; 
100 acres of grasa land, £100 ... 100 0 0 
Total. ..£1,112 10 0 
The upkeep and gradual extension of tho cultiva- 
tion would bo effected for £200 a year, vo that the 
estate would cost about £2,000 before a return could 
be expected. It is difficult to say what amount, of 
dry bark would bo harvested from the first thinuing 
out in, say, five years ; but it is not unreasonable to 
estimate that 5,000 lb. of dry bark, presenting a net 
profit of 2s. a pound, would be the result of the first 
craping. But if the planter does not want *° ?P<» 
inchona plantation, with a portion 
e possibly sold for cost of opening 
1, plus a good interest on the money 
and-a-half 
opened, w 
aud value 
sunk. 
Wo are not well informed on this matter, but we 
should think that such a plantation could be pur- 
chased for £20 an acre the opened block, and £5 
an acre unopened forei-t. Thus, a block of 100 acres 
forest and 100 acres grass, with 40 acres opened in 
cinchona a year old, would bo priced at about £l,i00 
to £1,500. A planter with an available capital of 
£2,000 would thus find a property suited to his 
pooket, and subsequent extension of opening would 
be deferred till crop time. 
The objections to Kodekanal as a place of residence 
are, that the society is limited in extent, that the 
cart road from the plains is not yet finished, and 
consequently everything has to be carried up l>y coolies); 
that there are no schools ; and that bungalows are 
few, and hard to get for a term. But the climate 
is exquisite, and, with an occupation as is suggested 
in this letter, there would be no tedium, or diffi- 
culty in finding ample employment on one's own 
property or in looking after estates for others. Fur- 
ther, there is the shooting, which is very indifferent 
on the Pulneys, but improves every mile towards the 
west until the Kannan Devans are reached, whence 
extensive and unexplored wilds, teeming with elephants, 
bison, ibex, and deer, stretch away south forty miles 
to Peermaad, and north into the British Anaimallais. 
Stapleorove. 
We would strongly advise intending planters to 
visit the Pulneys and spend a year on the spot (learn- 
ing to plant) before investing their capital either in 
forest-laud or a cultivated property. 
SORGHUM CULTIVATION IN INDIA. 
A paper published by the Madras Government 
contains a letter from tho officiating Under-Secret- 
ary to the Government of ludia, Home, Revenue 
and Agricultural Department (Agriculture and Horti- 
culture), to tho Secretary to the Government of 
Madras, Rovcnue Department, forwarding for experi- 
mental cultivation in the Madras Presidency a small 
quantity of tho seed of the "Minnesota Early 
Amber Cane," a variety of the Sorghum 8aech um, 
and requesting that careful experiments may be made 
to test the value of this variety of Sorghum as a 
sugar-producer ; aud also that the seed produced may 
be preserved for further experiment'". In this letter 
were enclosed copies of two memoranda on tho sub- 
ject by Surgeon-Ceueral Bdfour, dated J- h N-pU-m- 
bcr 1880, and 8th February 1881. In the Gist of 
these Dr. Balfour rofers to tho introduction by him in 
1859 iuto India of impheo from the Capo of Good Hope,, 
and of sorgho from tho United States of Am rica, 
aud the subscquout results. That tho juice of the sorgho 
has not hitherto been erystalized iuto sugar is duo not 
to any inferiority of tho cano but to a method not 
having been discovered to overcome tho difficulties 
in th<> way of crystalization. Thcs>o have now been 
removed. Dr. ISalfour thoreforo points out tho desir- 
ability of onoo more trying the cultivation. Besayt 
" Its treatment .should bo precisely that of the Sorghum 
iiiijuK, the juari, choluru or jouna of the liiudustau, 
