io86 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[June i, 1882. 
THE TRADE IN CINNAMON. 
27th April 1882. 
Sir, — I find that a correspondent, who signs himself 
" Cinnamon,''" has been addressing your daily contemp- 
orary as to the means to be adopted to raise the 
price of cinnamon even by a small amount. I venture 
to address you on the same subject, as greater publcii- 
ty here and in England will be given to this import- 
ant matter by its finding a place in the columns of 
the Observer. At the present time, when a powerful 
agitation is set on foot to prevent adulteration of 
coffee and thus raise the price of our staple product, 
it will not be amiss to make an effort to similarly 
benefit a product which has given a name to this 
island. As the production of cinnamon is confined 
wholly to the island, combination to effect any change 
will be much more easy than in the case of coffee, 
tea, cinchona or any other product which has foreign 
rivals. 
First and foremost we want monthly sales of cin- 
namon. A lukewarm and half-hearted effort was made 
some time ago to effect this change. A change could 
not then have been made, owing to the combined front 
presented by the English brokers against any depart- 
ure from the old-established quarterly sales. I he 
brokers predicted a still further fall in prices, if a 
change were made, and the agitation, if it could be 
dignified by such a name, ceased. Now to us who are 
not well versed in the mysteries of brokerage it 
occurred that any plan that would remove a middleman 
between the grower and the consumer would be a 
decided advantage to both. By the present system of 
quarterly sales, immense quantities of cinnamon ac- 
cumulate, and are purchased by large capitalists, who 
supply the wants of the consumers, with a profit to 
themselves. If monthly sales are established, small 
capitalists, i. e. consumers, can afford and will be able 
to buy cinnamon themselves, and the profit made by 
the middleman, the large capitalist, will be divided 
between themselves and the grower, as the consumer 
will, even if he pays a penny per lb. more than the 
large capitalist at the quarterly sale, be paying less 
than what he would have to pay were he to buy of 
the middleman. I fear that to illustrate my mean- 
ing I have been rather prolix : but I have been 
endeavouring to make myself plain to my native 
friends, who are the chief growers. 
Next in importance to monthly sales is the necessity 
to do away with the trade in chips. There will be 
many who will open their eyes at this suggestion, and 
consider it the proposal of a madman to still further 
lessen the income from an already poorly paying pro- 
duct. To prove that the idea is not a wild one, and 
will eventually benefit the grower, I shall resort to 
figures. Let us take, for example, an estate of 100 
acres, the fair average yield of which ought to be a 
bale (1001b.) per acre per annum. The outturn of 
chips let us take as half of the quilled cinnamon; and 
this outturn any experienced planter will tell you is 
very high. The local price for chips is from R40 to 
R45 per candy of 5 cwt., or say roughly from 7c. to 8c. 
per lb. The cost of scraping chips is 3c. per lb; so that 
the profit will be from 4c. to 5c. per lb. Let us re- 
solve this to a profit and loss account :— 
Dr. Cr. 
To loss of suppressing 
2,500 R> chips, being | 
yield of 100 bales cin- 
namon, at 5c. per lb. ...125 "00 
Profit by the suppres- 
sion of the chips 75 - 00 
R200 00 
By the 2c, per lb. 
increase in price on 
100 bales cinnamon, 
I. e. 10,000 200-00 
R200-00 
I think hardly any one will deny that, by the 
chips being withheld from the English market, 
we will benefit by a rise of at leant 2c. or | 
penny per lb at the sales. If this be admitted, 
then it will be clear that, instead of being losers, we 
shall be gainers by not permitting chips lo be 
scraped on our estates. Considering that the trade 
in chips is of very recent growth, it will not be a 
very hard matter to suppress it. A combination on 
the part of the principal native and European planters 
not to have chips scraped on their estates, together 
with an undertaking with merchants not to ship chips, 
will, I am sure, effect the desired change; while those 
who scrape chips amongst the small landholders can find 
| a ready sale for them for the purpose of distilling oil. 
j I hope proprietors of cinnamon land, though they 
have not a representative association, will see the 
necessity of calling together a meeting, absent pro- 
prietors being represented by their agents, to consider 
what steps ought to be taken to protect their interests. 
—Truly yours, PLANTER. 
ANTI-WHITE ANT DEVICES. 
April, 29th 1882. 
Dear Sir, — If the sides of a hole are baked suf- 
ficiently to prevent white ants from getting in, will 
they not be about hard enough to keep the roots of the 
plant from getting out ? 
As a rule white ants attack the cocoa below the sur- 
face. So I do not think chopped aloe leaves spread 
on the top of the holes round the plants will act as 
a preventive. I have tried minced aloe, mixed largely 
with the soil in the holes, and have even put a good 
layer of it an inch or so below the seed or plant, but 
I can't say with much success. White ants don't like 
aloe juice, but they will go through a good deal 
in the way of temporary inconvenience to get at what 
they do, and that 's YOUNG COCOA. 
P.S. — When Liberian cocoa* was planted at Wella- 
waya in 1876, enormous holes were cut, and a fire 
built and lighted in each, I believe. I don't know how 
ti answered, or whether the object was to get rid of 
" poochies," or to add to the food of the plants. 
ANALYSES OF NATURAL AND RENEWED 
" PUBESCENS" BARK. 
Agrapatana, 29th April 1882. 
Dear Sir,— I notice, in your issue of 22nd April, a 
letter from Mr. Forbes Laurie, in which he says : — " A 
good Pubescens selected from a clearing grown from seed 
(where only Succirubra and Officinalis are growing) 
gives, on Howard's analysis, 8'31 quinine sulphate with 
hardly any other alkaloids." As the analyses of this 
species I have previously seen show, on Howard's 
analysis of natural bark, a very large percentage of 
cinchonidine, but in renewed bark a very small 
percentage — as, for example, taking two different trees : 
No. 1. (natural bark) 8'28 quinine sulphate, 3 37 
cinchonidine ; No. 2, (renewed bark, 8 mouths) 8-30 
quinine sulphate ; 0'03 cinchonidine — I have there- 
fore imagined that the renewed bark gave a 
very much purer analysis of quinine, and I cannot 
help thinking that the analysis quoted by Mr. Forbes 
Laurie must have been from renewed bark. Would that 
gentleman kiudly tell us whether it was renewed, and, if 
so, how many months' renewal ? and what covering— if 
any — was used? — I remain, dear sir, yours faithfully, 
RED BARK. 
MR. JAMES SINCLAIR ON PLANTING~PRO- 
SPECTS AND CINCHONA HYBRIDIZATION. 
Dear Sir, — I really think we, in the younger dis- 
tricts, are over the worst. Rid us of grub, and the 
fungus is not to be much feared. It is where you 
* Sic. We suppose Liberian coffee was meant. — Ed. 
