Sept. i, 1893.] THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
PICKINGS WITH A LOCAL APPLICA- 
TION. 
Says an Auftraliau exchange, referring to the Rice- 
Crop in Cairns : " The average return is 2 tons of 
PADDY per acre against l-J tons last season, while the 
estimated total cultivation is expected to prcduce 
1,000 tons of paddy. The quality of the rice is re- 
ported to be excellent, and it is possible the extent of 
cultivation will be greatly increased next season. As 
the paddy is a marketable commodity when shipped 
south, growers need not fear that an output, however 
large, would congest the local market, and we hope 
next season to see 1,000 to 1,500 acres under crop." 
A very interesting series of tests have been made 
at the Wyoming experimental station to determine 
the quantity of water necessary to iRnioATE an acre 
of land. A continuous flow of one cubic foot per 
second during May, June, July, and August was found 
sufficient, with a rainfall of about G inches, for over 
ninety-five acres of land which had never been 
irrigated ; but the next year, with a rainfall of nearly 
7 inches, it would have sufficed for over 216 acres of 
such previously irrigated land. The need of water 
varied with the kind of crop. Thus one second foot 
through the four months would have supplied 167 
acres of oats, 295 acres of sugar beets, 336 acres of 
sorghum, 588 acres of peas, 735 acres of corn, all 
growing on land close to the irrigation canal. The 
previoufly estimated duty of water for Wyoming was 
about 100 acres to the second foot through four months. 
Experiments made at one of the Scottish experi- 
mental stations, if they have been properly carded 
out, go to upset some of the common notions of 
oiiAss PASTURE. It is generally believed that short 
pasture is more nutritive than long. It will, however, 
be conceded that the value of any grass is in direct 
ratio to its power of extracting salts from tlic soil. 
The experiments alluded to go to show that pasture 
when eaten short does not supply half as much 
nutriment to stock, as if allowed to grow say 8 inches 
long. The leaves condense the sap by evaporation 
of water from their surfaces and finally assimilate 
the material that was carried up to them in solution ; 
thereby causing the r ots to extract mor'^ food from 
the soil. If the plant be eaten short, it is deprived of 
this power of extraction or absorption, and its value 
as pasture is in consequence greatly discounted. 
This is the manner in wi ich the results of the 
experiments are explained. Overstocking therefore, 
is bad policy in more senses than one. 
A Russian paper thus refers to the Agriculture of 
the country :— '• In 1891 the Government lost three 
hundred million roubles, viz., cne hundred and 
seventy millions spent in famine relief, and one 
hundred and thirty millions deficit in ordinary re- 
venues. But the country lost more than three times that 
amount altogether, not less than one thousand million 
roubles, and all this because our population is ignor- 
ant of the elementary principles of agriculture ; in 
other words, we have lost this milliard by our own 
darkness, by our want of knowledge in that very 
subject (agriculture) by which nine-tenths of the 
nation live, and on which depends the whole of our 
economical and financial prosperity." 
A writer on Cocoa in the iScientiJic American believes 
that in a few years the supply will exceed the de- 
mand, though for yoars to come it will remain an 
important factor in the earnings of many tropical 
planters, passing current in some places (as it has 
long done in the Upper Amazons) in the place of 
money. 
The same writer objects strongly to the term 
•' Soluble Cocoa " as misleading. No cocoa in the 
market, he says, contains more than 10 to 30 per 
cent, of matter soluble in water, unless the material 
Bo dissolved is foreign soluble material that has been 
added during the process of preparation. Cocoa 
should bo 80 finely divided that tho insoluble part 
will not bj quickly deposited, ami will be in a 
condition in which it can be better acted upon by 
the digestive juices. It is a conunou practice and 
one much to be deprecated to add a foreign substance 
such as starch or sugar to render the liquid of so 
high a specific gravity or sq pasty that the insoluble 
uiatlei will uot deposit. 
21 
Here is a most instructive bit of reading (from the 
American Grocer) which however much it may be 
marked fnd learned will we fear be found rather 
indigestible :- Antipyrine, which people use a good 
deal nowadays, is made by the condensation of a 
halogen butyrate aad phenylhydrazine ; the methyl- 
phenlpyrnzine resulting is converted by a weak dehy- 
droraethylphenylpyrszive, and this by methylatioo 
yields dehydrodimethylphenylpyraz'ne. 
LETTERS FROM JAMAICA :— NO. .36. 
Coffee Planting, &c;. 
Blue Mountain Dislrict for Packet of June 13. 
The .Editor, 
Dear Sir,— I last addressed you not long after 
my return from my vieit to Montserrat : and now 
take up my pen to record what hag happened in 
Jamaica sicca that date, that may be of interest 
to your readers. As I write it is blowing and 
pouring in heavy squalls of wind and rain, we are 
surely experiencing what are here (ermed the May 
SEASONS, but in Ceylon would be called the little 
M0N3C0N. Since towards the end of March we have 
had showery weather, not good for curing coffee 
or weeding, but capital /or vegetation, after the 
rather long spell of dry weather that had hitherto 
prevailed. 
As regards 
BLUE MOUNTAIN COFFEE CbCP3 
they ere very backward thin year, and will probably 
last on til] ihe end of June, and will as a rule, 
from what I gather, be smalltr than last year, 
with the exception of one or two more favoured 
properties. Our hich mountain coffee does not seem 
to bear heavily two years running ; this is much 
more marked than it was in Ceylon, as most fine 
estates used if I recollect right to give a very good 
average, quite equal to our one tieroe, or say 7 
cwt. an acre: here the average must be very much 
fmalk-r. Our estates are eo few that the Blue 
Mountain orop cannot much eSeat the home market 
except in there being a smaller quantity of good 
coloury coffte available: and now that Ceylon 
coffee exports are getting less and less every ypar, 
and such fancy prices are given for pea-berry ooffee, 
surely our celebrated berry should also maintain 
its deeervedly good prices in the market. A great 
deal of coffee appears to be finding its way to 
Englacd in parchment: no doubt it answers well 
for Central American planters to have their 
COrrEB CUBED IN LONDON, 
as it enables them the quicker to get their large 
crops off the estates, and they have undoubtedly 
obtained belter prices for London cured coffee. But 
to us in Jamaica with our not heavy crops, and with 
all the necessary machinery at hand on the spot, it ia 
best to continue the old time process. We have no 
trouble in gathering or preparing the crop for market: 
it is the getting the coiiVe dry enough for the mill that 
most bothers us, as we have no very long spells of 
settled weather up in the mountains ; very pleasant 
but showery weather is mere frequent, so that it 
is often very ritky to put half, or three quarters 
dry parchment on the barbaoues, and so a suflS- 
cient force has to be kept ready to put back the 
coffee in time in case of a sudden shower, and 
this is what causi.H the curing to be expensive. 
As lo what is hero termed " picking for market " 
there ib uo difliculty, as the more lespeotable and 
well-to-do women, who will not do any field work 
are very ready to come for this work, and as 
regards the milling, winnowing and sizing, that ia 
soon done especially where there is water power. 
