95^ 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[May i, 1882. 
stated that the commodity is not pure. Whatever 
difference there may be as to any proposal for a change 
itv the law — and the subject is too intricate to be 
dealt with here— everyone will agree that the 
coffee trade is justified in feeling uneasy, when 
even the Revenue officers turn against it, and sacrifice 
its interest to those of cheap substitutes. The Board of 
Inland Revenue has been the main defence of the genu- 
ine coffee trade for many years past, but with what coun- 
tenance can their analysts continue to search for, and 
report, on spurious coffee, when the Lords of the Trea- 
sury themselves have signed a minute allowing its impor- 
tation ? Is the retailer to be prosecuted for selling 
" coffee as in Kamscatka, specially examined by Her 
Majesty's Customs, and found to contain all the aroma 
of the berry, and to be improved by the addition of 
highly nutritious and delicious substances" ? Supposing 
that a retailer were prosecuted, and it was found tbat 
the packer, without toe knowledge of the shopkeeper, 
had put in 90 per cent, of charred cabbage stalks or of 
burnt peas, what would the public think of such a go- 
vernmental imprimatur, followed by the prosecution and 
acquittal of the grocer? The latter would apparently, 
even in this extreme suppositious case, be quite protected 
by the declaration of admixture on the label.— Produce 
Markets' Review. 
TEA CLEARING. 
The new Customs regulations will, it is anticipated, 
eimplify the payment of duty upon tea, and the 
opportunity is thus a favourable one for considering 
how far the present system of delivery, with the endless 
delays to which it leads, can be improved. In the tea 
trade the "weight-note," a document abandoned in 
most other businesses, still forms the key-note of 
the system. A tea weight-note, as is well known, is 
an extremely complicated document, for, in addition 
to containing full particulars of the goods, it forms a 
contract, an invoice, and a delivery order. In theory, 
all this is very perfect, but in practice there is so 
much routine that despatch in delivery becomes im- 
possible. In times of pressure the tea trade comes 
almost to a deadlock, and, even when the deliveries 
are small, the delays are quite out of proportion to 
the work done, simply because of the complication of 
the system. 
One of the reforms wanted in the tea trade is the 
abandonment of weight-notes. Payments on account 
should also be made to the actual holder of the 
warrants, and the balance be settled with him at the 
prompt. Deliveries, as with most other trades, 
should be made by sub-orders, and the whole of the 
present complicated system of clearing or delivery 
should be rendered as simple as that in use in coffee 
or sugar. The tea trade, however, is the most con- 
servative in its ways in the Kingdom, and there is 
little chance of such sweeping reforms being carried. 
As the subject will shortly have to be discussed in 
connection with the new Customs regulations, it is 
quite possible, nevertheless, that some improvements 
may be effected. — Produce Markets' Review. 
LEAF-DISEASE AND MR. STORCK'S CURE. 
A correspondent writes :— " I see the editor of the 
Gardeners' Chronicle, in his preliminary observations, 
says that success depends on circumstances ' which 
should induce cautious txperiment on a small scale 
before embarkation on a large one.' He, therefore, 
does not regard Mr. Storck's statements as conclus- 
ive. These are : ' that the spores turned dirty yel- 
lov aud incapable of propagation' that, if it did 
not 'immediately kill the spores, it effectually in- 
capacitates them from germination' and ' all disease 
U dead before the fall of leaf.' All these are strong 
statements, but they are apparently mere statements, 
unsupported by any tests ; either of the facts them- 
selves, or of the cause having certainly been the 
carbolic vapour— post hocdoea not necessarily me&npropler 
hoc, and our past experience shows so many cases 
of similar appearances, that the facts could only be 
accepted as effects of the particular cause, after 
they have been themselves proved and the connexion 
established. I well remember a case where the appear- 
ance of the spores in six experimental sealed cases 
was the same in all ! The spores in the case where 
no remedial or other process had been carried out 
were exactly the same in appearance as the rest! I 
still consider, after reading Mr. Storck's remarks, 
that the first step towards a settlement of the ques. 
tion is to prove that mild vapour, harmless to coffee, 
does actually and undoubtedly kill the spore. I have 
seen the appearances Mr. Storck describes where no 
treatment whatever had been applied. I have also 
seen spores yellow as guineas, when strong vapours 
had been long surrounding them. If any of our plant- 
ing friends should think it strange that the spore 
should be materially more proof against treatment 
than the mycelium, they might be reminded of the 
difference between a seed of ceara and a growing leaf 
aud of the fame ! " 
MR. GRAHAM ANDERSON ON FUNGUS-RESIST- 
ING COFFEE ; " G. W. " ON THE " CARBOLIC 
ACID" EPPERIMENTS. 
Mr. Graham Anderson of Mysore is a coffee planter 
of such wide experience, so close an observer, and, 
manifestly, so careful a student of plant-life and 
behaviour, that anything from his pen on the subject 
of coffee culture, is deserving of respect and attention. 
In the midst of depression such as never before 
affected the coffee enterprize in Ceylon, it is cheer- 
ing to find this experienced and intelligent Mysore 
planter uttering words of confident hope for the future. 
He, at least, does not despair of the revival of the 
sorely-tried Arabian coffee enterprize. No planter or 
intelligent observer can possibly dispute Mr. Ander- 
son's statement that, in the vegetable world, as in the 
animal, there are causes and conditions which pre- 
dispose to disease. When cholera, for instance, be- 
comes epidemic, it finds its first and its most 
numerous victims in subjects debilitated by drunken- 
ness, wasting disease or innutrition. But .unfortun- 
ately the epidemic does not stop there, but proceeds, 
as it increases in virulence, to strike down the 
strongest and those who have most religiously ob- 
served the laws of sanitation in regard to body and 
abode. The deadly fungus has visited our coffee with 
all the destructive effect of an epidemic, and, while 
trees originally weak, or which have become weak 
from improper treatment or want of culture, including 
the application of fertilizing substances — while these 
suffered first and worst, the most vigorous and most care- 
fully and scientifically cultivated do not finally escape. 
As hemileia vastatrix seems to stop short of absolutely 
killing its victims, contenting itself with reducing 
vitality and fruitfulness to the lowest ebb, of course 
the analogy with cholera cannot be pushed too far ; 
but it is close enough, and it might be better for the 
planter in the end if his plants were at once killed 
utright, rather than reduced to an invalid condition, 
equiring constant and expensive treatment with but 
