384 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [October i, 1881. 
ploughings with this implement is equal in effect 10 
twenty grubbings with the besb native plough. 
Constant and repeated weeding is required for 
maize. Maize should get at least 20 tons of farm- 
yard manure per acre supplemented by about 2^ to 
3 cwt. of mineral manure applied as a top dressing 
after th^ first hoeing and previous to ridging up with 
a ridging plough. A ridging plough with double 
mould board on the principle of the " Kaisar " can 
be made up for R9. 
Good bone dust manure costs about R7-5 per maund, 
varying of course with the price of sulphuric acid, 
which in Upper India is seldom less than 8 annas a 
pint. A mixture which has been found to answer 
remarkably well consisting of wood ashes, boue dust 
(calcined bones) and common salt in the ratios of 6-3-1 
respectively, is much cheaper (about R4 per maund): 
though not so powerful fertilizer as if composed solely 
of bone dust. The bones are calcined then pounded, 
and afterwards treated with sulphuric acid and hot 
water; wood ashes and salt are then added and the 
substance fit for use. About two ounces of the manure 
to each plant will produce excellent results, four, 
five, and even six cobs to each shoot. 
With careful cultivation and judicious treatment, 
the Indian species would soon exhibit the excellence 
of the American maize or South African mealy. 
The cost of cultivation and produce per acre, would, 
in the hands of an intelligent cultivator, approximate 
close to the following figures : — 
Cost of cultivation, 
Government Revenue 
Seed 20 lb 
Manure 20 tons 
Ploughing, ridging, 
after cultivation ... 
Harvesting crop 
Mineral manure 3 maunds © R4per md. 12 
45 12 0 
Value of produce. 
Grains 60 maunds at Rl-5 ... ... 90 0 0 
Straw fodder 120 maunds atR0'25... 
per maund ... ... ... 40 0 0 
130 0 0 
Balance in favor of cultivator 130 
minus 46= ... ... ... 84 0 0 
Attempt-? have been made to introduce the American 
varieties into this country, and not without success : 
though it could be as well to bear in mind that one 
or two years of rational cullivation would soon bring 
the native maize in point of excellence up to the finest 
imported species. One of the greatest mistakes made 
and the rock on which most agricultural experiments 
in this country have split, has been the attempt to 
introduce and force upon the natives, foreign species 
at the expense of the indigenous staple. 
Mr. Fuller's experiments with fodder croj)s at Cawn- 
pore have shown that the sorghum only requires care- 
ful cultivation to equal, if not surpass the once far- 
famed Teosinte or Rcana Luxurians according to Mr. 
Fuller, reana cannot hold its own with "sorghum." 
When these foreign species are introduced and dis- 
tributed to intelligent natives, it is seldom that precise 
and accurate directions are given as to the method of 
cultivation, or if instructions are given no native would 
for one instant dream of carrying them out, the con- 
sequence being that with shallow cultivation and de- 
ficient manuring, the highly organised species degener- 
ates at once, and the much talked of Valaiti Tulchm 
is found on developing into a full grown plant to yield 
a produce lit 
ountry stap 
to, if as good as the ordinary 
d the native never dreaming or 
I caring to admit even lhat the fault was hix, for the 
future, discredits the imported seed, and " will have 
none of it." Every Indian staple, maiz', rice, wheat, 
sorghum, sugar, and cotton, one and all under a 
system of rational cultivation, can b • rendered capable 
of the highest development, and that in a relatively 
short space of time. Let the new Department of 
Agriculture bear this in mind, using its best 
endeavours to attain this end, and au agricultural re- 
form of great importance will then have been tfl'ected. 
25th July 1881. 
Sericulture is progressing steadily in the Uuited 
State?, under the care of the ladies who have taken 
it in hand, and at a recent meeting in Philadephia 
they were enabled to announce that the culture of eilk 
had at last become a promising and profitable industry. 
Trees and cuttings of mulberry have been sent out 
to 15 States, and eggs to 20, and a firm of slk mer- 
chants has offered premiums amounting to 500 dollars 
for the best pound of cocoons in the different classes. 
The climate of the United States is so diversified 
that it will be strange indeed if eomr locality is not 
found as well adapted raising silk as Japan or India. 
—Sydney Mail. 
New Patents. — Amongst the many patents lately 
taken out, we note the following inventions, specifica- 
tions of which have been filed under the provisions 
of Act XV. of 1859 in the office of the Secretary to 
the Government of India in th» Home Department • — 
No. 63 of 1881. -George Archer, Tea Planter of 
Darjeeliug, in British Sikkim, for drying tea, coffee, 
cinchona bark, and other vegetable products, named 
"The Vacuum Stove." No. 69 of 18S1 Jan.es Macbeth 
Robertson, Tea Planter, residing at Arcuttip ore Tea 
Estate, Cachar, for drying or roaring tea leaves, 
entitled " The Typhoon. " — Indian Tea Gazette. 
Bran or Ground Feed is best fed to cows, upon 
moistened hay, it being mixed with the hay all will 
be eaten together and raised and masticated. But if 
it is not fed with cut hay, it should be fed dry and 
in a small quantity each time, for if fed alone it is 
not raised and re-masticated, but toes on 10 the third 
and fourth stomachs. If fed in slop it is swallowed 
w'ithout any mastication, and mixed with little or no 
saliva, but it fed dry it cannot be swallowed until 
it is mixed wtih saliva, and the saliva a. -i-' in di- 
gestion. When food is masticated the act of rumina- 
tion causes the saliva to flow and mix 
We have experimented, and find that when 
dry ground feed is better digested that whet 
— National Live Stock Journal. 
The supply of Cinchona plants. — This teason has 
not been equal to the demand. Planters have enquired 
in all directions with only purtiallj satisfactory results. 
In Ceylon stumps are in favor, and more than one 
correspondent of the Observer recomn 
preferable, to plants, which sometitri' 
patches wholesale in the most unacc 
The roots should be trimmed with a 
and the stumps cut off about 8 inches ; 
before planting. A planter in Wynaa 
us that a device of his to supply a 
plants has answered admirably. The 
follows : — He trimmed off the lateral shoo;s on the 
young planting of the previous year, and removing 
all but the two tenderest leaves at the tip, but in. 
cuttings into the pits in some cases two to each 
and others three. The cuttings were put down be- 
fore the monsoon, and the following year he found 
that most of than had struck root and were in excel- 
lent condition. In some cases both, and in many all 
three, cuttings had rooted. We commend the plun to 
those who have failed to secure a supply of plants. — 
South of India Observer. 
ith food, 
fed alone 
fed wet. 
em as 
vn in 
way. 
knife, 
roots 
mired 
-:; of 
