THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[January 2, 1882. 
the South Pacific and the Antilles of the far West, — 
and growing those which experience has proved to be 
the best as disease-resisters and saccharine-juice-yielders. 
Amongst the worst, from its liability to disease, is the 
pale, soft, succulent " Bourbon " ; amongst the best is 
the more slender and less succulent " Rose bamboo." 
Arguments, therefore, which apply with more or less 
force to sugar culture must be received -with large quali- 
fication when the hard-wooded perennial coffee is in 
question. Of one thing there can be no doubt : both 
plants benefit largely by copious applications of lime, 
and were this substance available in large quantities at 
a cheap rate, and could it also be cheaply applied in its 
caustic state to the fungus-infested coffee of Ceylon, we 
could soon afford to laugh at leaf-disease, Hemileia being 
relegated with a specially hearty ha ! ha ! to the limbo 
of rare herbarium specimens. We have seen some warn- 
ings about the too free use of lime with reference to 
its efiects on certain soils. But we should really like 
to see the coffee estate in Ceylon, the soil of which, as 
well as the plants, would not be benefited by a ton per 
acre per annum, dusted over the trees at frequent in- 
tervals and ultimately affecting fallen leaves, prunings, 
buried weeds and the soil. The latter is, over the vast 
proportion of the coffee-growing region, not essentially 
infertile, but in a state to yield up far less of its fer- 
tility than is desirable because of the over-prevalence 
of clay, that clay being in a bad mechanical condition 
because of the paucity of lime. We only wish some of 
our planters were able to try the experiment of how 
much lime dusted on the trees to destroy the fungus 
would be necessary before the soil was affected injuri- 
ously instead of beneficially. We are quite at one with 
Mr. Storck as to the value he places on caustic lime, 
the real limit to the use of which cure for leaf disease 
and soil imperfection is its cost in pmchase, carriage 
and application. The cost of sufficiently copious and 
sufficiently frequent applications of lime being in the 
majority of cases prohibitory, most fervently do we hope 
that Mr. Storck's vapour erne may turn out as great 
a success as he "predicts" it will. The vast proportion 
of the substances required to produce vapour which will 
kill Hemileia, even when the parasite is inside the leaf , 
without injuring the tenderest leaf or the softest flower, 
exists, Mr. Storck tells us, on estates, and Mr. Filling- 
ham Pan- states that the estimate of £2 an acre for 
the first year, vapour being constant, is too high instead 
of too low. But what planter would grudge £2 per acre 
for the first year aud £1 per acre for a few succeeding 
years, if he felt certain that the result would be so to 
banish spores of the fatal fungus, as to enable him to 
follow Mr. Storck's advice by applying organic manures, 
weeds, prunings, &c, to his coffee, without the disheart- 
ening conviction that he was fertilizing the fungus as 
much as the bushes it preyed on. We only wish that 
Mr. Storck, instead of "predicting" what his automatic 
(self-acting) vapour machines, operating constantly from 
centres over circumferences, will do for Ceylon, had been 
able to tell us that as a matter of fact and history he 
had succeeded in fresing Fiji from a pest introduced 
not by Heed-coffee from Ceylon (Mr. Morris insisted that 
seed would not carry living spores) but by plants im- 
prudently imported. Mr. W. F. Pan-, a former Ceylon 
planter, no doubt speaks of Mr. Storck's process as an 
undoubted success. But in asking for the protection of 
a patent, or an adequate money reward in Ceylon, Mr. 
Storck's case would have been enormously strengthened 
had he been enabled to adduce the united testimony of 
the planters of Fiji, that the vapour had banished the 
fungus from the limited coffee cultiu-e of the archipelago, 
as effectually as St. Patrick banished the " varmint " 
(if he did banish them, which recent events make us 
doubt) from Ireland. The old adage that a prophet 
has no honour in his own country does not seem to 
apply to Mr. Storck, but probably in Fiji, as here he 
would like to be sure of his reward before he lets the 
public into the secret of all his processes. We suspect 
there is nothing for it, however, but trials sufficient to 
demonstrate perfect success, and then trusting to Govern- 
ment and the planters for remuneration. It will not 
be forgotten that Mr. George Wall gave a full trial to 
vaporization as a cure for the fungus, and that it failed. 
The use of multitudinous tins was expensive and the 
vapour did not fully and equally affect the foliage of 
the plants. From the use of the term " automatic," 
are we justified in inferring that besides being driven 
hither and thither by winds, the vapour from Mr. Storck's 
centres is mechanically driven outwards and upwards 
from those centres, so as to reach and effect every por- 
tion of every tree and every leaf of the foliage ? As 
one average man can attend to 50 acres (only four for 
an average estate of 200 acres!) the automatic machines 
(Mr. W. F. Parr uses the term " tins ") can be neither 
very numerous nor very complicated. The substances 
most abundant on estates, apart from varieties of soils 
and manures, are leaves, pninings and weeds, and we 
should have suspected that Mr. Storck combined in- 
cineration with vaporization, but for his denunciation of 
any movement of leaves and twigs. They are to be 
treated with lime in situ and then forked into the soil. 
We do not quite understand why Mr. Storck thought 
it necessary to state, what is so obvious, that the larger 
the area treated by his vapour the better, while the 
statement that an adjoining estate however badly affected 
by the fungus cannot infect one which has been vapor- 
ized is more satisfactory than clear. Amongst the sub- 
sidiary subjects treated by Mr. Storck is that of possible 
improvement in the bearing powers of coffee by resort- 
ing to cross-fertilization. We should be glad to know if 
any experiments in this direction have been tried in 
Ceylon, and with what resnlt ? 
We observe that the Planters' Association of Ceylon 
has declined to offer any reward in the present phase 
of the alleged cure. But if Mr. Storck comes here, 
and under all possible conditions just to himself and yet 
permitting certain evidence of the success of his system, 
converts his prediction into absolute fact, we feel we 
can safely assure him that neither cordial gratitude nor 
liberal reward will be wanting. 
(To the Editor of the "Ceylon Observer.") 
HEMILEIA VA3TATRIX : A COUNTERBLAST 
FROM FIJI. 
Levuka, 3rd November 1881. 
Sir,— I suggested to Mr. Storck that he should 
write you a few remarks about his newly-discovered 
cure for leaf-disease, and he forwards the enclosed, 
which I send on to you at once, instead of returning 
