TO OUR READERS. 
In closing the Fourteenth Volume of the "Tropical Agriculturist, " we 
would as usual direct attention to the large amount of useful information afforded and 
to the great variety of topics treated in the several numbers. From month to month, we 
have endeavoured to embody in these pages the latest results of practical experience and 
scientific teaching in all that concerns tropical agriculture ; and our ambition has been 
to make our periodical not only indispensable to the planter, but of service to 
business men and capitalists, never forgetting that agriculture trenches upon every 
department of human knowledge, besides being the basis of personal and communal 
wealth. 
While directing our attention chiefly to the products prominently mentioned on 
our title-page, we hove always taken care to notice minor industries likely to fit in with 
sub-tropical conditions : and our readers have an ample guarantee in the pages before 
them, that, in the future, no pains will be spared to bring together all available infor- 
mation both from the West and East, the same being examined in the light of the 
teachings of common sense as well as of prolonged tropical experience in this, the 
leading Crown and Planting Colony of the British Empire. 
Special attention has, during the past year, been given to the extension of the 
planting enterprise in coffee, cacao and rubber in Mexico, Central and some parts of 
South America; coffee and other products in Nyassaland, British Central Africa : to 
Arabian coffee and cacao in Java ; Liberian coffee in Deli, Sumatra, and the 
Straits Settlements ; and to other new developments in coffee in the Malayan Pen- 
insula and North Borneo. In the great Dutch Dependency (Java) several Ceylon 
planters have lately been investing largely. 
The Tea-planting Industry has sprung into so much importance in India and 
Ceylon, that a considerable amount of space is naturally given to this great staple, 
and we think it will be admitted by impartial judges that the Tropical Agriculturist 
should be filed, for ready reference, in every Tea Factory in this Island and in India. 
A full and accurate Index affords the means of ready reference to every subject 
treated in this, the fourteenth volume, whk h we now placd in our subscribers' hands, 
in the full confidence that it will be received with an amount of approval, at least 
equal to tl at which has been so kindly extended to its predecessors. 
We are convinced that no more suitable or useful gift can be made to the tropical 
planter or agriculturist, whether he be about to enter on his career, or with many years 
of experience behind him, than the fourteen volumes of our periodical which we have 
now made available. They are full of information bearing on every department and 
relating to nearly every product within the scope of sub tropical industries. 
In conclusion, we have to tender our thanks to readers and contributors, and 
our wish that all friends may continue to write instructively and to read with appro- 
val ; for then, indeed, must the "Tropical Agriculturist" continue to do well. 
Colombo, Ceylon ; 1st July 1895, 
J. FERGUSON. 
