3o3 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Nov. i, 1894. 
root by the owners, but are sprouting up fre-h again. 
The offer has been accepted with thanks. The cinchona 
company Mela'tie, more fortunate than Borne of its 
competitors, is able to pay its shareholders 5h per 
cent dividend as a result of la6t year's trsdhg. It his 
been decided to amalgamate the company with three 
other estates, »r d to inorease the eapiUl to 650,000 
florins (54,000^.) The directors of the J .va coffee 
and cinchona plantation Tombt report that last year 
owin^' to a diseaee in the cinchona trees, they were 
compelled to harvest nearly 51 tous of birk which 
under ordinary circumstances would have bi en left 
on the trees for some time. The cinchona disease 
continues to spread in tbe grown trees on the com- 
pany's estates and no fewer ihan 111,630 young trees 
have therefore been p'anted last season. — Cliemist and 
Druf/yist. 
CINCHONA CULTIVATION IN BRITISH 
INDIA. 
In a recent report of the Indian Government it 
is stated that on the Government plantation of the 
Darjeeling district in Bengal there were, at the end 
of the year 1892-93 4,331,000 oiuchona trees, or 100,000 
less than in the preceding year. During the year 
466,000 trees were uprooted for their bark or died, 
while 184.0C0 were planted oat. The harvest of dry 
bark wns 304,000 lb. The factory produced daring 
the year 3,481 lb. of cinchona febrifuge and 4,242 
lb. of snlphate of quinine. Tlie sales ana issues of 
medioine during the year yielded a profit, alter meeting 
all charges for maintaining the plantations, renewing 
plant, and working the factory. As soon as the remain- 
ing million of red-bark trees are used up, it is intended 
to msnufacture only quinine, and to cease making 
cinohona febrifuge at the Darjeeling factory. The 
capital cost of the plantation has been repaid by 
the sale of oinohona drugs in previous years. Ample 
ground has been reserved for extending the Darjee- 
ling plantations. In the G >vern ment plantations on 
the Nilgiri hills, in Madras, tbe cinchona trees ere 
almost all of the quinine-yielding varieties. Drought, 
and the absence of sunshine, male tbe year 1893 
unfavourable for cinehona cultivation on the Ni'giri 
hills. The produce of the factory at these plantations 
during the year was 4,933 lb. of quinine and 3,139 lb 
of cinchona febrifuge; 3,204 lb. of the former and 
2,6001b. of the latter were sold or issued to Goverr nient 
and municipal or local departments. The area under 
cinchona on private plantations outride Bengal is re- 
turned at 10,862 acreB, nearly a'l of which are iu 
Madras. The exportation of cinchona bark from 
India by sea, whioh was 3,074,000 lb. in 1888-89, 
and 2,693,000 lb. in 1891-92, amounted to 2,814,0001b 
in 1892-93 — Chemist and Druggist. 
MARAGOGIPE COFFEE IN S. INDIA. 
A. S. E. Wynaad correspondent writes as follows: — 
' Maragogipe ' and 'Smtos' Ooffea are both doing 
grandly here. The ' Mara' clearing planted iu July 
93 is a sight, many trees being o»er 5 feet high. 
There was a little sprinkling of fruit on them which 
I have bar! picked off but they will give a crop in 
'95 only 2 years old them 1 The ' Santos' were p'antsd 
in '92 two leaved seedlings and were watered through 
the first hot weather, to beep them alive., They £.re 
now grand plants and bad fruit on them this year, 
which I have had removed. I look for good results 
from my ' Mara' and have planted out some 30,000 
more plants this monsoon. I think the Hybrid 
between Arabica and Mara will be good." Rather a 
different story, this, from what we have been told of 
Mara ' at Kulhutty. — South of India Observer, 
COFFEE CULTIVATION. 
Banoalobh, Sept 22.— Lord Wenlock this morn- 
ing, accompanied by Colonel Henderson, British 
Resident, and Major Ravenshaw, Assistant Resi- 
dent, rode out, under an esoort of Lancers, to 
Rochdale Park, the property of Mr. Meerachaiya, 
Legislative Eeoretary, Mysore Servioe Hie Ex 
cellency inspected bie coffee plantation under 
irrigation. Twenty thousand plants are iu 
flourishing oondition, specimens of which took a 
special prize at the last Horticul'ural 8bow at 
Bangalore. The Madras Government may poFsibly 
introduce c it -a cultivation similarly in the low 
country. — Times of India. 
COFFEE AND TEA ON DIGESTION. 
By Db. A.ndbi w Wilson 
Some interesting experiment* on the influence of tea 
and coffee on digestion have lately been undertaken 
by Professor Sc^utzenstein. It is fairly well known 
that both tea and coffee rettrd the digestion of meat. 
The practice of taking coffee after dinner can only be 
explained, I presume, on tbe theory that the coffee 
acts as a corrective to any a'cobolic effects; otherwise 
one cin l.ardly find a justification for adding it to 
tbe menu on physiological grouods— unless, perchance, 
it may b«i regarded merely an an agreeable adjunct 
to pipe cr cigar. "Meat tea*" have long been the 
ab'jmiuttinn of physiologists, for the reason that the 
combination is an indigestible one, although experi- 
ment has shown that fait fcods digest moro readily 
alone with tea or effee than frceh meat*. C<r'aiuly, 
a "Inigb tea," much «s it may be thought of popularly, 
is an unphysiological meal. Professor Schutzenstein 
showed that while gastrio juice (the etomaeb'a own 
secretion), which is specially destined to dissolve 
and dige-t nitrogenous or meat foods, of itself was 
able to digest 91 per cent. o* egg albumen (or white 
of egg) in tbe space of eight hours, it could only 
affect 66 per cent, wbeu tea was added. With coffee 
tbe effects were of even more strongly matkod char- 
acter, for then only 61 per cent, of the white of egg 
was assimilated. Another point elioi'ed by these re- 
eearcbes was that wbioh showed the diffrreLCd pro- 
duced by a strong and weak infusioi of tea and coff«i 
respectively. The weaker the iufusi~>n, as might have 
been expected, the less dietur'.anoe was note I in tbe 
work of the gastric juice. Tbe Professor inclines to 
think that it is the tannin of tbe tea and coffee 
wtich is obiefly r^pon-ible for these results. He 
exempts tbe active pr nciples of tea and coffee (tbnine 
nnd caffeine) from the charge of delaying aud hinder- 
ing tho dige.-tivo work. — Scienct Joltings. 
CEYLON TEA IN MACAO. 
The trade of the tea merchants iu the Portuguese 
Indian settlement of Macao is, accorling to our 
Vice-Consul'a report, in anything but a flourishing 
conli'ion, owing to the increasing tendency of the 
Indian and Ueyl <n teas t: drive oat the China-grown 
product iu tbe Au tralian colonies and elsewhere. One 
exception, however, is noted, and this is sa d indeed 
to be the only sort that his brjught in any return 
to the Macao dealers of late. This is a new ' b'end." 
which gods under the old famil ar designation of 
"lie tea." It is manufactured from exhausted tea 
leave;, which are dried, retired, and mixcJ with a 
certain nreporation of genuine tea and of seeds and 
dust. Mos: of this preparation proceeds, we are told, 
to Humburg, but is often packed in chests labelled 
"Best Congou," and shipped tn India for popular 
consumption. — British Daily Mail. 
TEA AND SCANDAL. 
It would take op too much of ycur space, and be 
foreign to the object of my contributions were I to 
reproduce any of the delightful chats " Over the Tea- 
oups " by Oliver Wendell Holmes, but I give a few 
sententious remarks that occur directly oonneoted with 
the ' oops that cheer.' At page 6 he saya:— The 
morning cap of ooffee has an exhilaration about it 
wbioh the cheering influence of the afternoon or even- 
ing cup cf tea cannot be expected to reproduce. The 
toils of the forenoon, the heals of midday, in the 
