February r, 1882.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
669 
COTTON IN THE SOUTHERN PROVINCE. 
Dec. 12th, 1881 
Dear Sir, — I ernd a sample of cottou : it grows 
freely in the Southern Province. Can you or any of 
your correspondent)* give me any idea of its value 
per lb.— yours faithfully, A. R. WIGOIN. 
[This ia reported by an expert to be silky, long-stapled 
cotton, very similar to Biazil and Egypt and worth 
perhaps 7d. a lb. Sea Island cotton stands No. 1 ; 
Egyptian and Brazil No. 2 (ono peculiarity of No. 2 
being the ea-e with which the cotton separates from 
the seed) ; TinneveHy is a poor cotton save for its 
whiteness which enables it to be mixed with American. 
But our correspondent will find it to be rather more 
difficult to get a good return in staple and quantity 
from an appreciable acreage of cotton than from a 
few plants, we fear. -Ed.] 
CINCHONA BARK. 
Dec. 14th, 1881. 
Drar Sir, — Is " Cinchona,'' who dated his letter 
to you on the 6th Deo., in a position to assert that the 
bark on the original stem of a copp'ced tree has 
no market value ? If "Cinchona" has prved by 
analysis the truth of the s ateinent he makes, his 
informal ion is of considerable value, bu> it strikes me 
he s romancing. — Yours faithfully, SULPHATE 
Insect troubles among Tea and Coffee plants in 
BURMAH. — Another eiiciny to the tea and coffee plant, 
and one tbat is to be fojnd in ah parts of India, has 
made its appearauce imongst the experimental cultiva- 
tion caniedon last in the Karen hills, north-east of 
Tounghoo. This is the mole-cricket, and Mr. J. Petley, 
who was in charge of the cultivation, says ill his report 
on this year's experiments : — ''Towards the end of the 
rains of 1880, lurge numbers of the mule-cricket made 
their appearance and much destruction was done amongst 
young tea and coffee plants, killing them by nipping off 
the top-, principally amongst the coffee. Boys were 
employed to catch aim kdl these destructive insects." 
The tea plants do not seem to be attacked to such an 
extent as the coffee plants, for, out of 25,630 young 
collce plants sown last st a-aim, over -Q,< 00 were do 
stroyed, as well as a large uumbir of this year's seed- 
lings. — Calcutta Englishman. 
Notes from Wynaad. — At time of writing, we are 
all busy with crop, and, judging from ieports, results are 
likely to be betier this t>ia» n thuu last, '''he Associa- 
tion has been so tar successful as to get the Cotfee-steal- 
iug Act. continued to ihe main r<>ails in the lowcountiy 
and so on to the count, and v. o l ope the day is not far 
distant when it will be extended to the entire district. 
Even this extension will not entirely suppress coliee- 
atealing, although no doubt it will reduce it in a 
Bflat degree. Labour this year is plentiful : in fact 
(omo estates have too many coolies for tliei' requirements. 
Tamil cooliea from Palghaut and Coimnatore seem to be 
coming in larger numbers every yi ar, but whether 
they can be really depended on remains to be seen. 
The Association have none anil are still doing their 
best to get a Labour Act passed, but with no result 
•o far. However, we hope, with i he advent of anew 
Governor, wo may at last got what is of such 
vital importance to us nil. Most of us this season have 
DUt out cinchona, us a " tall back, ' the chief varieiv 
Doing Buooirubru, as most suited to our altitude. The 
mmeroui new products <■! < tylon have not yet tutfnd 
ther way here, but Will do SO, I fancy, in time. H i b 
regard to the g.dd industry 1 bolievo that in Devala 
son..' nl the coin ani.'.i wi.lso.ni lie crushing regularly. 
In tuo out li, mat tent aiu uuL so lor word. 
Carbolic Acid — Those to whom the smell of 
carbolic acid is disagreeable will be glad to barn that 
a perfumed carbolic acid is made which possesses the 
odor of lemon without undergoing any deterioration 
of its antiseptic properties —New York Hour. 
Peruvian Bark.— India (*ays a home journal) 
is rapidly com ng into the market as a competitor with 
South America in the supply of Peruvian bark. The 
amount sent to the London market in 1879-80 is 
divided as follows : — 
lbs. 
Colombia 6,002,330 
India and Ceylon 1,172,060* 
South America (except Colombia) ... 959,030 
Jamaica, about ... ... ... ... 21,140 
Besides Java, for the Amsterdam market 70,088 
Coffee Adulteration.— Mr. W. F Courthope has 
kindly forwarded us at Mr. G. Wall's request, a cutting 
from the Evening Standard of 17th Nov. in which it 
is stated that a grocer had been fined for selling 
coffee that was 90 per cent chicory, and butter that 
contained no butter at all. In the letter in which 
Mr. Wall enclosed the cutting, he writes : -" At the 
food exhibition at the Agricultural Hall last week, 
I saw date coffee, coffee extracts (any number), French 
coffee., dandelion effee, all sorts of so-called coffee, ex- 
cept real coffee, of which I saw only one poor ne- 
glected miserable dishwitb about half a pound of roasted 
b ans, a sort of scarecrow amongst tin flashy piles of 
attractive canisters full of abominable shams. So it is." 
Coffee in Fiji. — A Taviuni planter writes:— "As 
regards coffee we are in a transition period just now, 
some estates are doing or showing well, others poorly. 
I am erecting a pulpmg-houso and store on the es- 
tate and curing-inill at Wairihi on 'he coast. There 
must be something definite as regards coffee) in Fiji 
said soon. On open well-ventilated estates, comparat- 
ively sheltered from the prevailing south-east and 
north winds, the Hemeleia vastatrix is a myth. The 
black bug is the prey of a small ant. Such good 
fortune may be the precursor of some dire misfort- 
une, e. g. a fall in price of the commodity. I en- 
close a few beans from last year's maiden crop." 
[Good, clean parchment of a line clour, but small. — Ed.] 
Minnesota Early Amber Cane.— In a Madras 
Government paper is published a letter from Mr. W. 
R. Robertson, Superintendent of the GovernnientFarms, 
to the Secretary of the Board of Revenue, acknowledg- 
ing the receipt of few ounces of "M nnesota Early 
Amber fane" reed, and stating that this variety of Sor- 
ghum had already b. cu in cultivation on tbefarm for 
about two y. mis. Half a bushel o< the seed was 
presented to the farm by Messrs. Alien and Co.. of 
New York, ind was received in May 1*79. The 
results obtained with a portion of this seed iti the 
Experimental Ground* were satisfactory, seeing that 
it was "imported" seed. The crop was grown en irely 
as a fodder crop, and no efftimati' u of the amount of 
saccharine juice in the canes was made ; but they did 
not seem sweeter to the taste tlum the canes of ord- 
inary riprghum. From the produce of this plot another 
plot was so >u in the Expei imental Cj round* in Augus' 
1880; and on the farm one or two plots of laud 
were sown with this drop and treated as ordinary crops 
but tho iivc age out turn was small, about 2.i0 lb. of 
grain and 2 tons of straw per acre. Mr. l.obertson 
adds: — ' At the present tune, wo have two small plots 
under this variety of Sorghum. I intend to cru-li tho 
whole of he canes and to convert tho juice into jag- 
gery and sugar. In- results uf tl.e-e experiments 1 
will co ii iii unicat c in due Course U well as those obtained 
with the packet of seed received with the proceed- 
ings br reference." 
• Ceylon alone sent 1,204,11-7.1' in 1*79-80 to Loudm 
—Ed. 
