Nov. i, 1894.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
32S 
last, which shows that our income from coffee and bark 
will probably be £3,468. Oar expenditure on the crop 
of last year was £2,793, so that we will probably 
have a profit of £675. Now, you are aware that the 
London expenses were extremely heavy. Up to the 
30th of April last they came to about £200, and in 
previous years they were heavier. Then there was 
another £100 vvh ch bad to be paid away in int-resfc, 
so that if you deduct all those expenses you will find 
that we have carried on the company at a profit of 
£250. Now, I ask you whetbsr our chancer of paying 
a dividend are not very much greater than th'-y were 
formerly, more especially os instead of hav.ng to pay 
a dividend on a capit a of £100 000 we only have to 
pay on practically £12,000. We could iesue op to 
£32,000 but at presem we have on'y about 0,000 
preference shares anil 6,000 ordinary shares upon 
which we have to pay dividends, so that our prospects 
for the future are decidedly good. At t he meeting at 
which it was deeded to reconstruct the company — 
one of the things disoussed Wtis that the management 
of the company proper should not be iu the bandi of 
the London board, bnt in the bands of a Leal 
manager. That point we have strictly obs;rvej. 
We decided to make Mr. R. R. Walter our manager 
in India, and we have given him full powers. We 
have a sort of guarantee that he will dj the 
best he oan in the interests of the company, 
because he hae become a sba-eho'der to the 
extent of £500. Letters have been received 
regularly from Mr. Walker, and he reports favourably 
about the future. He ban thinned out a good many 
shade trees which prevented the coffee from cropping ; 
he has planted Liberian coffee on aoothcr estate ; 
and he has written to the effect that he will 
make the thing pay. He estimates the coming cm > 
of coffee at twenty-five ton", and in a subsequent 
letter he states lhat this estimate will be realised, 
and also that be will ship 30,000 lb. of bark, which 
is a Uitt'e more than half we hud last year. The price of 
barkis about 20 percent better than it was, and, taking 
coffee at £80 a ton, those two items should give 
us £2,350. We have allowed Mr. Walker to spend 
on the property R38.000, which, at the present ex- 
ohatige, is about £2,100, but part of that expenditure 
will probably go against Capital, so that there is every 
hope of getting £400 or £500 on the first year's 
working, which wou'd he applied to pacing a dividend 
on the preference shares. The monsoon has broken 
favourably, and the weather after the monsoon has also 
boen favourable, and at this moment there is really 
nothing to interfere with the mituriog of the coffee 
There is no doubt that if we bad the other £10,000 
which we originally offered underwritten, we should 
be able to amalgamate or absorb other properties 
which would give us immediate returns. I do not 
waut fo mention names here, tut I think that in the 
future something may be done in that way. I have 
only recently been able to secure the services of an 
exotllent secretary, and we have now definitely moved 
into tbis building. 
Dr. R. M. Ir.man corroborated the chairman's state- 
ment, and re'erred to the anxious and laborious work 
which he had performed iu the interests of the com- 
pany. Tbe prospeots of the oompany ware better than 
be (Dr. Intuan) would have ventured to prophecy six 
months a^o, ini that was largeL due to the valuable 
exertions of Mr. Labonchere. He also expressed his 
acknawl^dgmi nts to his colleague, Mr. Sanderson, for 
tho valuable assistance be bad rendered. 
Mr. H Lamb proposed the confirmation of the elec- 
tion of M'S^rs James Lahoucbere, Robert Mathew 
Ionian, aod John Cornelius Smdereon as directors until 
the next general meeting in 1895. — liullionist, Sept. 18. 
PICKINGS WITH A LOCAL APPLICATION. 
The fo lowing ia tbe ieply of a correspondent to 
an mqniry in the Journal of Horticulture about the 
Papaw tne : "... I have grown it here for tbe 
last five years, and also fruited it for three years. 
1 have three plants in fruit now, one of tbo bearing 
twelve fruits the sizo of a small melon, Th plants 
are grown in pots, and some are now planted out ia 
a bed iu the same house. They are in a house where 
we grow the guavas cuS-ard apple, inoastera and 
mango."— T. W. Inwood House Gardens. 
Other correspondents write of trees that grew and 
f mi ted at Byfleet, Sntrey (some 30 years ago) an! 
at Stanmore Hall Gardens. 
We read in the Florida Agriculturist that a new 
use for 
FRUIT 
is foreshadowed in the discovery by an English 
electrician named Hill that a difference of potential 
exists between parts of the various fruits, to such an 
extent that an electric current may be obtained by con- 
necting such parts by wire. In his own experiments he 
has already succeeded in securing a current powerful 
enough to ring an electric bell from a battery of 
twelve melons, which had been connected in series 
by platinum wires inserted at their top3 and bot- 
toms. While it seems scarcely possible that fruit 
will ever be utilized generally for the production of 
electricity, Mr. Hill's discovery may lead to the 
disclosure of certain hitherto unrecognized properties 
of fruit, which may prove to be peculiarly valuable 
in medicine and dietetics. 
Says an Australian exchange : — 
A few years ago the Coffee iodnstry offered poor 
inducement to Queens'and plauters. The quantity 
requited for the world's consumption wis provided 
by Ar»b;a, Ceylon, Brazil, Java, and other couDtrie, 
where coffee-growing was an established iudusrty 
and berries of the best quality were produced. The 
spread of the destructive disease in Ceylon, however, 
forced many of the planters there to abandon coeffe 
and turn their attention to tea, and their success 
with the new crop has been so marked as to ioduee 
the majorit/ of tbe remaining advooates of coffee 
to give up the a'tempt t> combat the dis ase and 
embark in the new venture, also. This leaves a way 
open for Queensland. As yet we have not been able 
to submit Eamp'ei of coffee of local produotion to the 
decisive test of the marke 1 -, but now that the question 
of cultivation is solved we shall not hi surprised 
to very soon s?e Q leensland coffee figuring la the 
London quiita'ions at top prices. 
VARIOUS PLANTING NOTES. 
Having to Boy One's Coffee !— It is very- 
hard on old coff ;e planters who give preference to 
the " fragrant bean" rather than the " delicately 
flavoured ieef ' in their dioootions, to have to buy 
their coffee !— What should we all have said ia 
the " sixties and seventies" if anyone had prophe- 
sied that in the " ninnies," planters in Hantane, 
ia Rangale, in Pussellawa, &o., &o., should hive to 
buy every bean of oeffee for bungalow use,— and 
that low the disease has practioaily left U5, many of 
them should be without a yard of forestland wherein 
to try a few plants of the old staple whether of the 
hybtii or Liberian kinds. 
The Madras Season Reports.— Yesterday the 
Board of Ravenue telegraph d to thj Government 
of India for the we=k ending the 29th ultimo aa 
follows: — "Rainfall is fair in the greater part of 
the Circara and South Oanara, moderate iu portions 
of Ballary and Kurnool and light or soatt.red 
showers in most other distriots. Agricultural 
ope atioDS continue. Staud ng crops tro generally 
good, but more rain wanted in the Dooaan, Cen- 
tral and Southern districts. Harvest id going on 
with a fair ou.turn. Pasture is generally sufficient 
and fodder is available though dear in plaoes. 
Condition of cattle is generally good. Prioea 
oouiiuue falling slightly though still somewhat 
higher than the average. "-M. Mail, Oot. 3ul. 
