January 2, 1882.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
645 
we should still have considered it unwise ; but as 
things are. Government get precisely the same amount, 
whether the mine is being worked at a loss, or is 
giving a magnificent re turn. Again, the cooly test 
is a somewhat rough and unscientific one. If it is 
desired to insure a certain expenditure, — which, how- 
ever, we deprecate altogether -it would be bett»r to 
say that 80 rnncli a month shall be spent on mining 
operations. Most of the work is done by machinery; 
mining engineers and skilled English miners are found 
necessary; none of this is taken into account; the 
hard and fast coolie labor test holds good, and is 
brought into force three month* after the grant is 
made — long before a Company could be got into work- 
ing order, and put the necessary machinery and staff 
on the ground. This one clause alone is enough to 
condemn any ruler; of which it forms a part. 
We trust the blunders pointed out so clearly in the 
Madras rulos, and which it seems are not to be found 
in those operating in Mysore, will be avoided by the 
Ceylon Government. To help them to a right conclusion 
we append a list of rules for granting out mining 
land, drawn up by the Mail as embodying all that is 
required in the case of Southern India, and therefore 
well 
Pc 
on I 
inissi 
situa 
Ea 
sk etc 
the I 
An 
Ceylon :- 
ision to mine, 
dy to the Coin- 
specifying the 
estimated area, 
led by a rough 
the position of 
ions will be dealt with iu order of receipt. 
Is'o lot o.- lots in one application shall exceed one 
Square mile in extent. 
But the s mie applicant may apply for more than 
one square mile in other applications, and such ap- 
plications will be grunted should there be no reason 
against it. 
On an application being accepted the lot shall be 
durably demarcated, aud conv yed at the expense of 
the applicant, to whom a lease shall be granted. 
An assessment of. As. 8 per acre shall bo payable 
by two half yearly instalments on 1st January and 
lat July, the lirst instalment being clue for the theu 
current half year, and payable on the dale o; the 
execution of ihe lease. 
The land may be thrown up at any time, but so 
long as the assessment is paid, and the conditions 
are not broken Government will not resume or in- 
t rfere with it. 
The Jaud shall bo liable to road assessm* n'. 
A Royalty of 0 per cent on the nett profit of any 
mining operations shall be payable to Government. 
The works shall nt all times be open for iuspectiou 
by the Commissioner, or Collector, or by officers 
deputed for tho purpose by him. 
Accounts shall be furnished to the Commissioner 
or Collector yearly, and books shall be duly kept, 
which shall at all reasonable times bo open lo the 
inspection of the Commissioner or Collector, or officers 
m put> id !>y bitn. 
Cinchona ash Pisivatk Entkuhjisk. — The 7Vw.< 
of India w rites : -Planters in Ceylon and India, and 
other private individuals who have put their money 
into cinchona will not hear with profound satistacti >n 
that a few days ago upwards of three bundr <1 bundles 
of bark were shipped from Madia-, to tin: order of 
the Secretary of Slate for India. The supply Was from 
the Oovernniciit Cinchona Estate, and each Immll ■, it is 
said, was valued at R300. Private grow in art ratur- 
ally Hiking when Lord Ripdn's policy of encouraging 
private outei prise is going to bo applied to cinchona. 
162 
THE CRYPTOGAMIST'S LATEST UTTERANCE 
ON "LEAP DISEASE." 
The long letter from Mr. Marshall Ward, in reply 
to criticisms on his reports, which appears on another 
page, will bo carefully perused by the large class 
interested in the present condition and prospects for the 
future of coffee in Ceylon and in the Eastern world 
generally. When Mr. Ward wrote that "complaints ' • 
had reached him that portions of his reports had been 
"misunderstood by lay readers," he meant, of course, 
that certain statements in his reports were worded in 
such technical terms that lay readers— persons not 
le .rned in cryptogamic lore— failed to apprehend their 
meaning, or put a wrong construction on what was 
written. Now, as Air. Marshall Ward is not only a 
scientist but a "'Varsity " man, and as he manifestly 
took great pains to clothe his conclusions in fitting 
language, we have little doubt he feels inclined to quote 
the writer who insisted that it was no part of his busi. 
ness to provide his readers with brains to understand 
matter which he had made" understandable." But 
sometimes words convey different ideas to different minds 
and it must be due to this fact or to some natural 
obtusen-ss on our part, tha' we must be ranked amongst 
ihe'lay readers who misunderstood him in regard to 
coffee leaves matured into a condition of "hardness.' 1 
Until now correcte 1 by Mr. Ward, we were inclined 
to believe that, as a leaf hardened { its stomata contracted 
to such an exteut as to offer an obstruction to the access 
of the spores of Hemileia vastatrix, when, f dlowing the 
astonishing instinct implanted in them, they sought 
their food in the interior cells of the coffee leaf, carefully 
I discriminating the leaves of that plant from those of any 
other. As we now understand Mr. Ward, it is a fact in 
vegetable physiology that a matured or hardened leaf 
has breathing mouths of the normal size just as much 
as in the case of the softest and most succulent, 
aud bearing the same relation in tho on" as in the other 
to the spore tubes of the parasite that an ordinary house 
drain does to an ordinary snake ! We confess also that 
the proportions of intruder and door of entry, now so 
explicitly slated by Mr. Ward, constitute to us a new 
and most formidable feature in the life history of fungns 
and leaf , of feeder and fed ; of guest and host. There 
is always an opeu door for the fuugus, which is only too 
ready to enter within twenty-four hours ->f being started 
from dormant to active life bj' tho iutfuenee of moisture. 
Our previous impression was that the moisture which 
enabled the fungus spore to germinate produced also an 
enlargement of the breathing pores of the leaf, bo as to 
render facile the access of tho enemy to tho citadel and 
its food stores. We thought and hoped, as we suppose 
many other lay readers did, that if we c mid got 
matured and ha dencd foliage on a tree tint foliage 
would be impervious to the insidious spores of thu 
cuckoo of tho vegetable world. But wo misuudersto >d 
the oryptcgdmist, whose intention it was merely to 
indicate that, if the planter cau so order bis manuring, 
pruning and cultivation gen rally, as to covi r hi* b ishos 
with a crop of mature I leaves, before the sport* of the 
I fungus are driven by the winds of the mOMOOn ou to 
tho leaves while those spore* are s inult.-.n •ously 
awakened to nctive and destructive life— a life of 
systematic theft— bv the monsoon moisturo— t'nay (ihe 
