666 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [February i, 1882. 
MEW PRODUCTS : PIMENTO. 
Dfar Sir. — I am glad »o see the seed of a "new 
product," pimento, or allspice, being advertized in 
Colombo. It yields a very valuable spice, and the 
branches are largely used for walkin»sticks and 
umbrella handles, and it ought to he very valuable. 
I believe there are one or two trees in Ceylon, and 
that they have thriven well Cm y< u kindly give 
me any further information on the subject ?— -Yours 
truly, PLANTER. 
HOW TO PACK COCOA SEED FOR EXPORT. 
Dec. 6th, 1881. 
Deak Sir, — I have, for a long time, been experi- 
mentiug how to keep cocoa seed alive, with the view 
of importing or exporting it. 1 need not mention my 
failures. Packed seed in dry saw dust, 2nd July 1881, 
opened on 2nd September : seed all perfectly fresh- 
looking, with roots inch to inch and-half long. Plant 
out ; keep well shaded ; and water lightly.— Yours 
truly, COCOA. 
ARABIAN COFFEE AT LOW ELEVATIONS. 
6th Dec. 1881. 
Dear c ir,— "Never Too Old To Learn" could not 
have a better authority on clearing lantaua land 
than Mr. Holloway. But Mr. Holloway's letter ap- 
pears to me a little obscure. He writes: "Fifteen 
rupees lor felling and clearing, and ten rupees for 
taking out roots, and burning same, per acre." Now 
a person might be inclined to think that Mr. H Uo- 
way me ns that you should pay a total of R25 
per acre, but I feel certain that he only means R15 
p r acre for felling, clearing, and taking out roots. 
Th t is the price I have hitherto paid. 
In my opinion, Mr. Holloway is the best authority 
O" ci'ffe cultivation at low elevations, and I can 
assure you from my own knowledge, that he has not in 
the least exaggerated the cr ips he has had on Maria 
and Eriagastenna during tbe last two years, as I have 
been over the piacus and have been astonished to see 
the same coffee bearing so heavily both years. —You rs 
faithfully, R. 
KIGELIA, CEDRELA TOONA, AND INDIGO SEED 
FOR CEYLON : A THIRD CASE OF BRINGING 
COALS TO NEWCASTLE. 
Colombo, 6th December 1881. 
Dear Sir, — Amongst the seeds brought from Java by 
Mr. A. M. Ferguson, was a large parcel of a thin-winged 
seed, the produce of a tree which he said formed beauti- 
ful avenues in Java, and which I guessed to belong to 
a tree allied to our satinwood. On sending a supply to 
Dr. Trimen, I received the following interesting note, 
which I take the liberty to quote: — 
"I had just been harvesting our seed from Cedrela 
Toona when your parcel from Java came — another case 
of ' Coals to Newcastle.' Apropos of your note about 
Kirjelia; the tree you remember outside the Garden 
gates was removed in 1862 with a vast lot of other 
tilings. We have a fine one near the pond and several 
smaller ones. In Kandy are several also; one in the 
Government Agent's garden near the Temple gate strikes 
every eye rfom the pendant ' sausages' which hang 
over the road. Two other genera of the Crescentieao, 
Colle'a and Parmentiera (the Candle tree), are also common 
in the garden." 
I A small tree of this latter plant growing at the Whist 
| Bungalow, now occupied by Mr. Stipperger, has been 
known to me for about 12 or 15 years, and I saw an- 
other some years ago at Pallakelle estate, but as I had 
no book in which this curious plant was describe I, I 
could not name it. Its pendant long cylindrical fruits 
are a good deal like dull wax candles. On sending a 
specimen to Dr. Trimen, I received the following note 
respecting it : — " The plant you send is the candle tree — 
Parmentiera cereifera, of my friend Seemau, who wrote 
an amusing account of it in one of his South American 
books of travel. We have many trees of it here, but 
I did not know it was so old an introduction. The ripe 
fruits are exactly like the old (now extinct) ' dip.' " 
This singular plant is described in Kew Garden Journal 
vi., p. 273, Botany of Herald p. 132 (? 182), t. 32, and 
referred to in Warper's Ann. 5, p. 523, and by J. Miers 
in Lin. Journal, vol. 17, pp. 3.38-9. Found in the cen- 
tral parts of the Province of Panama. 
But the object I had in writing was to refer to the 
attempts made to introduce seeds of the Indigo Plant 
to Ceylon, about one of which a correspondent in your 
issue of yesterday refers. I believe the facts of the case 
will justify the heading to this letter that this is a third 
attempt to introduce " Coals to Newcastle." 
The indigo plant, Indigofera tinctoria, Linn., has been 
known to me as a common wild-like plant in various 
parts of Ceylon during the last forty years, and is quite 
common about Colombo, where it is well known to the 
dhobies and others as the nil (blue and green) awari, 
Sin. It and also the I. Anil were included in Moon's 
Catalogue in 1824, and the former was collected in 
Ceylon by Paul Hermann in 1670-1677, and is described 
briefly in the Flora Zeylanica of Linnaeus 1747, at p. 
125, No. 273. In 1857 I examined Hermaun's collec- 
tion in the British Museum, and found two plates and 
one set of specimens, viz., Ic. tt. 47 and 356, and speci- 
mens in p. 20 of vol. 2 referred to for this species. 
The specimens are good for the indigo plant. Linnaeus 
expresses a belief that it was an exotic in Ceylon, but 
common at Paliacatta (?) and Coromandel. 
When Paul Hermann collected his specimens of the 
indigo plant in Ceylon, the Portuguese had been here 
151 years, and the Dutch, for whose Government he 
came on a botanical mission to the island, were here 
about 20 years, and if an exotic in Ceylon as hinted at by 
Linnaeus, it was very likely introduced one hundred years 
before Hermann's time, but I think it is as likely to 
be a native of Ceylon as any part of India. I had no 
trouble this morning in finding specimens of the Indigo- 
fera tinctoria in good flower and fruit in the compound 
in front of the new Ice Company in Kollupitiya, some 
of which I send for your inspection. 
When the Colombo lake during one period of each 
year gets very low, and the water in it loses its trans- 
parency, and in fact becomes very muddy, the dhobies 
are at their wit's ends to wash our calico or linen clothes 
white, and they resort to the indigo plant to somewhat 
conceal the color of mud imbibed by the clothes during 
the process of washing. The extraction of the color 
from the nil-awari is an easy process and well known 
to the washermen, who return white clothes with clouded 
patches of a color between mud and indigo! Talk of 
introducing the seed of the indigo plant to Ceylon. 
I noticed several tall plants of the variety of the 
indigo plant known as the I. Anil, Linn., growing in 
the compound of the late Dr. Elliott several years ago, 
but it seems to have disappeared for a time.* I could 
write a great deal about the different plants producing 
indigo, some of which are also in Ceylon, but I think 
the following description of the Indigofera tinctoria, L., 
from the Flora of British India by Sir J. D. Hooker 
* This is the plant figured opposite page 339 of Por- 
ter's "Tropical Agriculturist" though Indigofera tinctoria 
is written under tbe, plate. 
