588 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. Qanuary 2, 1882. 
Bordeaux, will you allow me to submit, through your 
columns, for the consideration of all interested, my 
view of the origin of the pest and of the meaue for 
its extinction ? In a matter where such vast interests 
are at stake, and which has accordingly exercised 
the minds of the most experienced wine-growers of 
the day to discover its origin and remedy, I should 
naturally have felt insuperable diffidence in ventur- 
ing to obtrude my views upon the attention of the 
public but for the opportunities I have enjoyed in 
India, while conducting experimental cultivation for 
the improvement of the indigenous products of the 
country, of observing the attacks of similar veget- 
able parasites, and what proved the best means for 
their extinction, the success which has attended my 
operations, as attested by the reports of professional 
experts on the produce of my farm, obtained through 
the Agricultural Department of the Government of 
India, encouraging me. 
"In the table appended at the foot of The Times' 
notice of the assembling of the Congress six Depart- 
ments are named as having been subjected to remedial 
treatment, and the vineyard acreage respectively ex- 
perimented upon in these Departments is detailed. 
The methods pursued were submersion and the ap- 
plication of sulphurate of carbon and sulpho-carbonates 
— all designed to operate directly as insecticides. 
Other chemical preparations of the same class and 
character have been tried by M. Fichet, of Versailles 
and others. Further, the methods described by the 
Duchesse de Fitz James, in last June's number of the 
Revue des Deux Mondes, comprising the grafting of 
American vines on French vine stems, French vines 
on American stems, the planting out on sandy soil, 
&c. — all these several remedies would seem to be 
open to the reproach to which all empiric treatment 
of disease is obnoxious — viz., the attacking of a symp- 
tom instead of the essential root of the disease, 
and thus betraying a want of right apprehension of 
its true origin. This, in my humbie view, is to be 
attributed to exhaustion of the vitality of the plaut, 
induced by unduly and unnaturally overtasking its 
productive powers. In this respect, the phylloxera 
of the French vineyards bears a close analogy to the 
red spider of the Indian tea garden, to the leaf worm 
of the Indian American, and other cotton fields, and 
in short, to parasitic growth wherever proving fatally 
destructive throughout the vegetable kingdom. The 
mode in which this law of nature, as it may be termed 
operates may be understood by reference to the phy- 
siological paradox, 'Life dies ; death lives. ' Wher- 
ever the vitality of a plant is abnormally diminished 
by over-plucking, overpruning, and unceasing inexor- 
able demands to produce more, more, when nature 
demands rest and repose to recruit exhaustion, the . 
sap, the plaut's life blood, becomes poor, sluggish, 
and enfeebled. Parasitic life is then evolved and 
preys upon the little remaining life that injudicious 
culture has left the plant. 
"If the above view in regard to the origin of phyll- 
oxera be accepted as an approximation to the truth, 
the remedy would seem to be self-indicated — repose. 
Give the vineyards rest. I passed through the wiue- 
producing districts of France last year on my return 
homewards from India via Marseilles. Most pictur- 
esque was the landscape, with the neat villages and 
detached farmhouses nestling among the slopes of the 
hills bounding the Cote d'Or on the west and through- 
out the undulating plains in other parts. But the 
vineyards ! A vast wilderness of stunted sticks, 
showing barely a leaf left, through the injudicious 
over-pruning, to imbibe the fertilizing elements from 
the favouring atmosphere and curry the much-needed 
nourishment down to revive the dried up, sapless 
stem and roots. If I might venture to formulate 
the remedy above referred to as self-indicated, it 
would be in the terms of my article in the December 
1878, number of the Journal of the Agricultural and 
Horticultural Society 0 f India on ' Indian Famines : 
an inquiry info the causes, with suggestions,' pp. 
188-9. Adapting the principle therein propounded to 
the circumstances of the French vineyards, I would 
suggest to each proprietor to divide his estate into 
four equal parts, not by fences, but certain well-re- 
cognized land marks. Then proceed by allowing to 
each portion in rotation its year of rest, or Sabbath 
year. In any portion where the vines might appear 
to be exhausted past retrieval there would be nothing 
for it but to plough up and renovate the soil by 
planting deep-rooted green crops, such as lucerne, 
turnips, carrots, &c, and plough in at or a little be- 
fore maturity, and in the succeeding ye»r plant with 
vines afresh. For the future let the Sabbath year 
of rest for one quarter of the estate in rotation be 
rigidly observed. The apparent sacrifice by the pro- 
prietor of one quarter's fallaciously computed revenue 
may be contemplated without misgiving in view of 
the wholesale ruin which has overtaken the import- 
ant wine industry of France from 'killing the goose 
that laid the golden eggs,' and would be amply 
compensated by his estate being maintained perman- 
ently in undiminished fertility all round. — I am, sir, 
yours obediently, 
C. L. Showers, Major-General." 
[General Showers' explanation cannot be the correct 
one, for our coffee leaf fungus attacks young coffee, 
and coffee trees grown from introduced seed, just as 
readily as the oldest trees in the country. For instance, 
Capt. Bayley's Liberian coffee trees at Galle, 100 miles 
distant from the coffee districts, shewed the fungus 
as soon as they had leaves. — Ed ] 
CEYLON TEA IN AUSTRALIA. 
November 4th, 1881. 
Sir, — We tea planters have to thank you for pub- 
lishing the sales of Indian and Ceylon teas in Australia. 
The last sales shew, on the surface, fair prices. 
But it should be borne in mind that the little words 
" in bond" take a good deal of "gilt off the ginger- 
bread." It means taking the first lot as a guide 
that, though purchaser pays Is 5d per lb., seller 
has to pay 3d per lb. duty before delivery ; that 
broker's commission is charged on the Is 5d per 
lb. and not on Is 2d; ditto also for agent. So that 
the seller of this tea sells his tea for Is 2d, but he 
pays broker's and agent's commission on Is 5d per lb. 
and discount to buyer on Is 5d. Other charges are 
also high, and, I think, it is a question if as good 
or better prices could not be got in England for 
really good teas. 
It seems unnecessary confusion for seller to pay the 
duty and it all leads to the loss of the producer 
and consumer. For in the latter case, consumers read 
the price tea is sold for in the papers and think the duty 
has still to be added. I think tea planters should 
take this matter in hand and specially Melbourne 
charges. It seems ridiculous that commissions to selling 
broker and agent, and also a discount to the buyer 
should be allowed on the Government duty, as well 
as on price paid for the tea.— Yours truly, 
PEKOE TIP. 
P. S. — As at the time of the "anniversary of a 
centenary" or a centennial anniversary, Yankees are 
given to blowing a good deal, it should be remem- 
bered that Corn wallis surrendered to a combined force 
of Americans and disciplined French, the latter about 
one-third of the entire force and that a French fleet block- 
aded Yorktown. 
