THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[June i, 1882. 
To convert into coffee (these do not make teas): 
Market-garden haulms 
Carefully blended with ten per cent 
Of low-class coffee, to give it a scent. 
Yes ! and a name, for that 's what is meant, 
Just to prevent your qualms ! 
You ask for " coffee " or " tea, " hut dare 
Not ask for what you know to be there 
Mixed and sold to you under the glare 
Of a gaudy label that looks so fair 
That nothing, it seems, could be truer : 
And the smooth-tongued tradesman pockets your pence 
And laughs to himself at his pretty pretence, 
And wonders if you will ever have sense 
To see that you buy what is pure. 
Few of you, doubtless, have ever seen 
Such a thing as a coffee bean, 
And not knowing whether it 's blue, red, or green, 
You prefer the brown mixture that's sold you; 
"While the used-up leaves from the Chinese " hong," 
Packed as " new teas," ab usu belong 
To the British public just as long 
As ignorance is withiu you strong 
And you are bound by the tradesman's th ong 
And scorn what your friends may have told you ! 
If a nobleman lends his name to such ends 
As date-grit and dirt-miscifacturing blends, 
To get him a living, why, let him ? 
Posterity will not enshroud him with fame, 
And you, if you 've sense, will soon clothe him with shame 
And then do your best to forget him. 
Do you think the. Creator, mistaking His plan, 
Made coffee a poison, and left it for man 
To improve and complete his design ? 
Or that company-mongers' sole object is just 
To benefit man, not to gratify lust 
In deceiving their fellows, seducing their trust :— 
Is this your belief ? 'T is not mine. 
You retailers, 't 'is useless to offer to you, _ 
Of course, any words of good, honest advice; 
For from all that is moral and upright and true, 
By nature and habit, I may say you are 
As distinctly removed as is water from tar, 
Or as earth from the sun, or the tropics from ice. 
Pestiferous knaves, may your trade fall away 
As fast as your ill-gotten gains have been made. 
Bring forth all your filth to the light of the day, 
And eulogize dirt without any hired name: 
State all its merits: its value: its aim! 
Then take note what the public say, 
Also how much a pound they pay 
And whether they utter cries of "Shame," 
Or whether they praise free trade ! 
Now, you ladies who love to believe that you know 
A really fine tea from a compound pekoe, 
Have you never a sense of disgust 
To think that yourselves and acquaintances drink 
Poison from which your own grocer would shrink : — 
Filings, turmeric, dust? 
You ladies still younger, the fair coterie 
Whose attendance adds charms to the 5 o'clock tea, 
I appeal just as strongly to you : 
Do you think to retain all the freshness of youth 
By drinking a mixture — I speak but the truth — 
Of willow-leaves dyed Prussian blue ? 
Now, you labouring men and you slaves of the pen 
Who sometimes take coffee to keep your heads clear, 
Don't you think acorns crushed and all such rubbish must, 
Be it even well blended with chicory dust, 
Be considered, to say the least, dear 
At tenpence per lb., yes, though bought finely-ground 
A„,l labelled in language attractive? You've found, 
Perhaps, it saves trouble to pay even double 
Th< price of good coffee for' coffee's good name? 
VYs! you pay for the name on the wrapper or tin, 
Nol for the poison (that '» worthless) within. 
How long will you foster the dealer's foul aim? 
Her Majesty's Customs, for twonpece per lb, 
Will admit any rubbish that's roasted and ground, 
Any Hubstance, in fact, that 'swell broken and browned": 
Oh, fair trade, how unfair thy expedients ! 
For consumption- of coffee does not now increase 
Although this should be one of the blessings of peace, 
But rather it seems from its steady decrease 
That imports of coffee should very soon cease 
If "my lords" can get "foreign ingredients"! 
Now, my Treasury lords, fit figures for boards, 
Let us see if you've fibre within you: 
You can deal out an answer evasive and brief 
To a body of men who implore for relief : 
Can a little fair argument win you? 
You were raised to your present position — we '11 now 
Not stop to enquire whether nobly or how, 
But if you should chance to pursue 
A course that is honest and moral and right, 
As far from your present as darkness from light, 
Would it bring but disaster to you ? 
You would lose the support that so boldly you bought 
By worshipping freedom of trade : 
You are tethered to dirt and you cling to the skirt 
Of the creed whose professions you 've made. 
Yes ! you lordly commissioners hold a position as 
Likely as not to degrade. 
But public opinion and taste must improve 
Ere justice will rise such low acts, to reprove 
And come to morality's aid. 
For " my lords" (I but quote from a Treasury note) 
'• Deem it their duty restrictions to move, 
If trade demands trash," lest their interests clash 
And things don't go on in a calm, easy groove. 
For votes must be bought, though the poor may be taught 
To fatten on garbage well blended by law, 
And the goddess of fraud takes the head of the board, 
Whom every commissioner 's bound to adore! 
Oh, people of Britain, a final appeal 
I make for your own and the general weal, 
In the hope that good judgment will solemnly seal 
A compact firm, lasting and sure. 
For your planters are sorely tried abroad 
With adverse seasons, and London's fraud 
Is more than they can endure 
So I ask you again, as I once have before 
Asked you, never to drink any more 
Rubbish or dirt, though imported by law — 
But to see that you drink what is pure. 
AUSPEX. 
Ceylon, 24th April 1882. 
ANTS AS INSECTICIDES. 
It is a curious coincidence that just as we had writ- 
ten our remarks about ants and termites the papers 
from China should have brought us the interesting 
paper by Dr. JVIacGowan of the American Baptist 
Mission, whioh we place below. Dr. MacGowan is an 
observer and naturalist of considerable mark, and 
some of our readers may recollect that we copied into 
the Observer so long ago as a score of years back, a paper 
by him describing the mode in whicb the Chinese ob- 
tain nacre-covered images of Buddha and ornaments of 
a|l descriptions, by placing them between the valves of a 
mollusc cultivated for the purpose. He now gives 
us information which shews that the Ceylon idea of 
employing red ants as insecticides, however ingeni- 
ous, was not original. The Celestials, in fact, seem 
to have discovered everything, from the mariner's 
compass to the employment of red and yellow ants 
to rid the orange orchards of worms. Captured in 
bladders filled with lard, the ants seem at once to 
get domiciled in their new aerial abodes, walking from 
one tree to another on the bamboo rods provided for 
them, in quest of tbeir prey. The worms referred 
to may probably be identical wiih those which infest 
oranges in Ceylon, if the fruit is allowed to ripen 
on the trees, a fact mentioned by that wonderfully 
careful observer, Bobert Knox, in the account of his 
captivity in Ceylon. The question is how the fruits, 
when ripe, are collected without the labourers suffer- 
ing from the attacks of the ants ? Probably one reason 
