June i, 1882.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
1025 
THE JAM AN TREE. 
TO THE EDITOR OF TUB MADRAS MAIL." 
Sir,— About three or four years ago, an article 
appeared in the Ayricultural Guvttr, intimating the 
result of some experiments said to have been made 
by a gentleman in the north of India, with the jaman 
or "jumblam" fruit, and stating that he had succeeded 
in making an excellent wine from its juice, but no 
notice appears to have been taken of this in these 
parts where the jaman tree is to be found in every 
avenue and tope, and the fruit during the month of 
August, particularly in the Mysore country, is found 
rotting in heaps on the roadsides, and the side drains 
are black witii them. The fruit contains an abundance 
of .saccharine matter, and distillers would, I think, 
find it an efficient substitute for jaggery in tho manu- 
facture of spirit-*, the supply being almost unlimitod, 
and the only cost to be incurred would be that of 
collecting and carting it. The seed of the fruit is 
highly a<tringeut, as is also the bark of the tree, 
and perhaps tho latter would answer as a tanning 
agent; but I have not heard of its ever having been 
used for the purpose. — Youi'3, &c, &.a GhQ Indian. 
THE RAIN-TREE. 
Some travellers in South America, in traversing an 
arid and desolate tract of country, were struck (says 
Land and Water) with a strauge contrast. On one 
side there was a barren desert, on the other a rich 
and luxuriant vegetation. The French consul at Loreto, 
Mexico, says that this remarkable contrast is due 
to the presence of the Tamai Caspi, or the rain-tree. 
This tree grows to the height of 60ft., with a diameter 
of 3ft. at its base, and possesses the power of strongly 
attracting, absorbing, and condensing the humidity 
of the atmosphere. Water is always to be seen dripping 
from its trunk in such quantity as to convert the 
surrounding soil into a veritable marsh. It is in summer 
especially, when the rivers are nearly dried up, that 
the tree is most active. If this admirable quality of 
tho rain-tree were utilised in the arid regions near 
the equator, tho people there, living in misery on 
account of tho unproductive soil, would derive great 
advantages from its introduction, as well as the people 
of more favoured copntries where tho climate is dry 
and droughts frequent. — Australasian. 
[Wo doubt a good deal of this.— Ed. T. A.] 
PLANTING RAILWAY EMBANKMENTS. 
Some objections or restrictions which apply to the 
rearing of timber on railway embankments, briefly in- 
dicated, are : — 
1. Tho risk of windfall. 
2. The risk of fire. 
3. Lodgment of fallen leaves against tho rails. 
4. Hindrance of view over the adjacent country. 
1. All trees of a large timber sizo are exposed to 
the danger of being overthrown by the strong winds 
of winter, blowing generally from a westerly direction. 
Those certainly which have grown up from then- earliest 
youth in constant exposure to the wind become in a 
measure windproof; but no development of tho roots, 
and do feasible precaution, will eusuro perfect stability 
against severe storms. Sometimes, even though [he root's 
remain tirm, the force of the wind will tear oft" largo 
branches, or even snap the trunk in two. A treo grow- 
ing on tl utward slope of a railway embankment, 
which had attained the moderate height of only f>0 ft., 
would always, or nearly always, considerably overtop tho 
level of the metals, ami, if rooted in tho uppor part 
of tho embankment, would reach higher than tho tele- 
graph wires. The unregulated fall of such trees might 
do damage, and interrupt tho truft'u: or communication. 
Large trees on tho bank of a railway cutting would in 
a still higher degree menace the traffic and the telegraph 
wires. In general trees fifty or more feet in height, 
especially on the west side of a line running towards 
north and south, either in a cutting or in an embank- 
ment, would add to the danger of travelling on a dark 
night in a high wind. These considerations would limit 
the age of trees on railway embankments, and would 
be prohibitory to the production of strong timber. The 
trees woidd often havo to be cut down in their thirtieth 
or fortieth year as a measure of precaution, and it 
would probably be convenient to treat them as coppice 
with a cycle of from fifteen to thirty years. Fruit trees 
too might be Cultivated, even to an advanced age, with- 
out their attaining any dangerous height or bulk. 
2. The risk of fire kindled by sparks from the loco- 
motive is peculiarly attached to pines and other coni- 
ferous trees in dry weather, and especially in hot sum- 
mers. Broad-leaved trees, when bare of their leaves in 
winter, are not entirely exempt from tho same danger ; 
but in then- case the danger is not nearly so great. 
In North Germany such fires have occurred so frequently 
among pines (Pimm sylvestris — Scots fir) that it is now 
an ordinary precaution where a railway skirts or intor- 
sects a pine forest to interpose a belting or narrow strip 
of birch or some other leaf tree. This birch (safeguard, 
being in leaf and green, will not bum in tho summer- 
time, and serves to intercept the sparks which other- 
wise would have ignited the resinous and highly in- 
flammable pines. The same precaution has to be ob- 
served, even along the more frequented highways in pine 
forests, against tho incautious disposal of burning to- 
bacco or matches. In England the danger would per- 
haps not be so great nor so regularly recurrent ; but at 
intervals of several years there comes occasionally a 
summer of scorching heat and long-continued drought. 
Such a season wuuld endanger the pines and firs which 
might have been reared on the railway embankment. 
3. The third objection indicated has aircady been 
referred to in these columns. 
4. The fourth objection hardly needs amplification, 
but seeks to givo prominence to the desire of tourists, 
fanners, foresters, sportsmen, and most travellers to see 
the country through which they are passing. 
— Journal of Forestry. S. 
THE COFFEE AND SUGAR PRODUCTS OF 
GUATEMALA. 
A correspondent of the New Orleans Democrat, 
writing from Puerto Livingston, Honduras, says there 
arc quite a large number of American planters, chiefly 
from Mississippi, located there, and that the country 
is making rapid commercial progress. Ho adds: 
"New York and Philadelphia are making strenuous 
efforts to secure this steadily increasing inter-tropical 
traffic. Their merchants havo already sent drummers 
to the ports that lie along the coasts of tho Carib. 
beau sea and the Bay of Honduras and tho Mosquito 
Gulf. The growing coffeo trade of Guatemala has 
attracted the serious attention of tho business men 
of the North ; and it seems thnt they have determ- 
ined to wrest it from their transatlantic rivals. 
Besides tho increasing production of sugar iu British 
Honduras, the colonists have begun the manufacture 
of a cheap rum — from the lowest grado of molasses — 
thnt is susceptiblo of being greatly improved, such 
is its peculiar llavour and purity ; the American 
planters of Punta Gorda do not hesitate to assert 
that it can be mndo to equal, if not surpass, tho 
celebrated rum produced in Jamaica, and which hat 
for such a long poriod been an important article of 
commerce. They inform mo that this rum and their 
higher guide moloaaoa ia so greatly esteemed in Eu- 
rope that t gethur thoy about pay tho entiro expenses 
of running their plantations." — Rio Xews. 
