668 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April a, 1894. 
Second : — Drying on brick floors under which 
furnaces are placed. 
Third : — Fruit-drying machines of various sizes. 
Fourth : — A system of drying by steam outside 
and enclosed cylinder has beou tried, and another 
of drying by hot air in a revolving cylinder is about 
to be tried. 
Of the first, it may be said that it is unsatisfactory 
as it is dependent ou the season, and a wet season 
may cause much loss of good cocoa by its becoming 
sour before it is properly dried. Of the second, that 
it is apt to shrivel up the beans and to discolour 
them : of the third, that fruit driers, even the best 
and moit expensive as yet introduced, have only 
served to partially dry the bean, and save it until 
it can be sun-dried. ready for sacking : of the fourth, 
that the machine requires some alterations : as it 
stands it appears rather to Jcook th^n to dry the 
bean : and lastly, the revolving cylinder has not 
yet had a fair trial. 
An English firm has patented a cocoa drier, 
called, I believe, the "Sirocco," which was lately 
tried at Trinidad before the Governor of the colony 
and several officials and planters with satisfactory 
results. Details of the trial, however, are not yet 
to hand, but if on receipt they prove the machine to 
be a success, I think the member of the firm who 
visited this colony, and invited the planters and the 
Government to send some one to represent the 
colony at the public trial of the " Sirocco " at 
Trinidad, even offering to pay all the expenses, will 
have BO cause to regret his trip, and that orders for 
the Drier will reach him from Surinam. Coffee can 
as yet scarcely be regarded as an article of export, 
the total import of 1891 amounting to only £5!), but 
for the last four or five ye .rs coffee planting has 
been on the increase, and in two or three years 
more Surinam coffee will again be on the market. 
Mr. Maoguire tel's ub that the resulta of the experi. 
ments made with the Sirooco were very favour- 
able ; but it wa? found that coooa had to be very 
slowly dried and at a low temperature to pre- 
vent discoloration and internal fermentation. 
The best rosults were got with a maximum heat 
of from 180° to 200° Fahrenheit. In Java too 
Messrs. Davidson have been making important 
experiments in the drying of oocoa and coffee as 
well as tea. A specially capacious Sirocco for the 
slow drying of "Coooa" has be^n designed and 
one has just arrived at Colombo which will be tried 
erelong on a cacao plantation and the resalts 
published . 
LIBEEIAN COFFEE li\ SAIGON. 
The following inquiry reaches us from a mercan- 
tile houae in tha Far East: — 
" We should feel very much obligjd to jon if you 
could tell us whether in coffee growing countries, 
which have a rainy and a dry sfasnn, the ripening 
of the fruit fakes place durirg the wet or the 
dry season. The plant < on our plantatioa began 
to blossom in the middle of March 1893 and, 
according to our last repo't of December, nearly 
all the fruit were still green with the exception 
ot a very few which showed a reddish shade, not 
cherry red as they ought to be when ripe. When 
this report was written, the dry season had set 
in for about 3 weeks, and our Manager expressed 
grave doubts whether the fruits would ripen at 
all after having been so long on the tree and still 
showing a green appearance." 
The complaint about the great delay in Liberian 
ocfiee cherry ripening up, is one of long-standiug 
in Ceylon. To ripen properly, coffee wants oooa- 
sional light showers of rain as well as sunshine. 
The coffee referred to, we should say, was suffering 
from the three weeks' drought : a shower or two 
would benefit the trees and orop, 
A TRULY WJ5T DISTRICT. 
Laggala DieTBicT, March 1.— Lovely weatb«r b«M 
at Uet, after what lias b;en a rather w«t ceMoa, 
Up to 16th F'ibroary (iB you will (««bythe aacom- 
parijiag figurHS, when th« wetther clesrei op; and 
eioce tlieo S'mply perfee*', witti tUbrmom«ter all 
day betirecn 60'^ and 75<^ Fahr. Hetvieet rainfall 
in 1m34 io 24 houn was between 21''t and 22ad 
Jan. when 15 50 in. waa rcgiste'ed, and ou i«tb F«b. 
1894 while a large portioti of thn country wa« 
being burofd up 5'HOio, wag registerad. I believe Um 
heaviest rBiDfall yet rerorHed in this diHirioi fell in 
January 1892 wb'in 153 30iii. wa< regial^'red fnr the 
mouth. But what Bn^ms nhooKt iuctedible the little 
appearance of surface wash af^er tbeee liotvy r>>iaa 
are ovc-r. On the light aoiU of AmV'agamuwa I have 
seen a fa'' greater dastruatiou fiom a nortb-east 
shower of Sin. to 4in than yoa do here after a day'l 
rain oF four tii/ui th«t quan i'-y. Tea bae now oom- 
menced to Hash io earrest. ^o anticipate a bnav lime 
fur tbe next few moutfaa. Hoping rry loss fortunate 
n-'igliboDrs ni«y e-^on b«ve a »hare< f the good tbinK* 
plontifu'ly ihowered on Wiese part-i. 
[In t1ieH4 times of dro'ight tbroughont the oenntry. 
The aocompiinjing figu es may c. ma in at arelrcshcr 
to vour reixler".] 
Memo.of(B. G. Lacgala) rainfall from Int Jauuary 
1891 to February 1894:— 
KhiMftll. Rainfall. 
1891. 18»2. 
iiichea. inchos- 
1.'>3*S0 
34-9fl 
January 
February 
Ma'ch 
Ap il 
May 
June 
July 
August 
S 'ptemker 
October 
November 
December 
1610 
16 29 
18-76 
3 38 
31-21 
20 18 
9 03 
7 81 
6-85 
50-34 
1339 
73 66 
1-76 
890 
5-60 
616 
1931 
13-20 
3 43 
25-63 
42-97 
76-44 
Riiiifall. 
1893. 
inobe». 
24-96 
6- 49 
2163 
12 61 
18-83 
11 79 
7- 43 
2-90 
3 50 
21 85 
44-82 
41 71 
Btinfa'l. 
1894. 
iuobfeB. 
37-08 
10-38 
Totals ...266 50 391-74 217-88 
THE LONDON STOCK OF QUININE. 
" We will go further, and express onr belief that 
....the era of qtiioine at 9d i er oz. and loss m\y 
be regarded as close'), and (cl at) we shall probably 
shortly arrive at a time when Is or tbereaboute will 
be the normal axis round whicb, n^ith a short radios, 
prices will revolve." — (C <ind D., December 23rJ 1898, 
p. 895.) 
The quantity tf eulptateof quinine stocked in tbe 
publio warehouses iu London has always been a 
dubious factor in estimates tf tho prospects of thefhrag. 
It will no longer be fo in future. A few wetk- ago 
representations were ma^e to (he Docks Commit- 
tee and the other warehouses known to hold etocks 
of quinine, asking them to publifh, from the 
begioning of the New Year, monthly returns 
of the stocks, iorpsrts a- d deliveries of quioiee, 
as is done iu the cbso of many of th<- principal drags 
and with ne irly all the stup'.e arlicles of colonial 
produce. The memorial was backed by m<ry in- 
fluential p' rsoDS coin erted wi'h the quinine bnsiop^e. 
and 86 the principal holdrrs of the slock were either 
on the side of these drman ing publicity or rema t'ed 
n;-utrsl, the Dcchs and other v alehouse companies 
afsente-i to the propoEa^ Ti c official retains have 
not yet be n published at the moment of wntiug, 
but they we e known to ii small number of iot rrstid 
parties as early as midday on January 81st aud on 
the afternoon of tbst d«y the London drne tr«(<e 
generally w^re acquainted with tfce 1^^; r wi ich 
proved to be smaller than wa= g' reraliy 8! ticipated, 
the tot^i being about 3,227,000 oufces net, of which 
2,465,000 are held at the Crntched Friars warehonse of 
the Dock companies, 665,000 at Smith's warehonse, 
62,900 at Bull Wharf, and 35,000 at Eed Lion Wharf. 
