Use. i, 1894.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
AN OLD COFFEE PLANTER ON THIS 
YEAR'S COFFEE BLOSSOM. 
Talawakele, Nov. 13. 
Dear Editor, — For some* time past it has been 
my intention to put on record, a fact connected 
with our old friend coffee. During the month of 
March last, coffee burst out into blossom, and within 
the month, there were three full blossoms, which 
my old experience would have led me to estimate 
each "at 5cwt. blossoms." I never before remember, 
having all our blossoms in one month, as during 
this year, as we in this locality had no blossom, 
either before or after, and now judging from the 
overladen and leafless bushes, bowed down with 
their heavy load of ripe and green berries, it stands 
before ua "a bare fact" that the blossom set well. 
Coffee, the poor remnant left, is doomed, and fast 
dying, hut. dying hard. I could show you patches 
with from 5 to 8 and even 10 cwt. on it, and without 
a leaf left to clothe itself, yet a good many of the 
berries, are fast taking on the " cherry bloom" under 
our present genial showers and sunshine, and will 
soon be garnered, and passing merrily through the 
pulper. 
This is truly a record year for the dear, departing 
" Old King" and blest are they, who own even a small 
remnant, sad, as it is, to behold the bare branches, 
dropping their fatness into a premature grave. — 
Yours faithfully, AGRICOLA. 
"SPENT TEA"— AND WRONG PROCESS 
OF INFUSING TEA IN LONDON. 
London, Oct. 26th. 1894 
Dear Sir, — I enclose you a cutting from The Times 
of the 22nd October reporting a case in which spent 
tea leaves had been systematically mixed with unex- 
hausted tea leaves and the mixture sold at 9*d a lb. The 
case has been very fullv reported and commented 
upon by the London press so that no doubt your 
special correspondent will also have brought the 
matter before your readers. 
I should like to take this opportunity of directing 
attention to the careless and highly unsatisfactory 
process of making tea adopted in many of the London 
refreshment shops. They profess to provide a fresh 
brew of tea for every customer and a spoonful of tea is 
certainly put into the pot which is allowed to stand for 
a minute or two only and the infusion so prepared is 
poured out into the cup and brought by the attendant 
to the customer. 
Instead, however, of removing the spent leaves from 
the pot, a fresh spoonful of tea is added when the next 
customer comes, and so on, till the pot becomes so full 
of leaves that they hare to be removed. The con- 
sequence of this neglectful method, is that the customer, 
instead of getting a cup of freshly drawn tea, really 
gets a cup made up of the previous brews, which, 
moreover, is largely impregnated with the objection- 
able tannin. 
Customers should insist upon having a separate pot 
of tea freshly made put before them, and not be satis- 
fied with a cup of tea which, as the writer has seen, 
is frequently poured from two different pots at the 
counter with very unsatisfactory results. — Yours faith- 
fully, JOHN HUGHES. 
CINNAMON BARK DECOCTION AND 
CANCER. 
Nov. 15. 
Dear Siii, — Tho treatment of cancer to which you 
have called attention by a para in your issue of tho 
13th inst., lias not been noticed, so far as lam aware, 
by the Medical Journals. As, however, the outlay 
involve^ in tho trial of tho drug merely amounts to 
the price of tho cinnamon bark— any one can prepare 
the decoction — there can bo no harm in any patient 
of tho class, giving it a trial. The decoction in 
itself is harmless, ana .can be takon by anyone. 
[f bancet is really, as many competent authorities 
believe, a parasitic disease, the parasite belonging to 
the animal kingdom, it may not be out of place t6 
inquire how the decoction of cinnamon bark can 
possibly affect this low form of animal life. 
Cinnamon bark contains an essential oil (01. 
Cinnam : ) which finds a place in the " B. Pharma- 
copcea," and is generally used as an agreeable adjunct 
to tonic mixtures, &c. Like all other essential oils, 
it possesses antiseptic and disinfecting properties^ 
and is deleterious to low forms of animal and 
vegetable life. The oil is clear like water when 
fresh, but in course of time it acquires a yellowish 
tinge, and deposits clear, colourless crystals of Cin- 
namic Acid, doubtless the product of oxidation. 
This Cinnamic Acid is an antiseptic and disin- 
fectant ranking in this respect with Salicylic Acid, 
but its price prohibits its use as a drug. It is 
possible the process of boiling may lead to the oxi- 
dation of the oil, and the formation of this acid, and 
that it may be present in Dr. Ross's decoction. Th* 
bark further contains tannin, some sugar, &c. but 
nothing else than the oil which could account for 
any therapeutic effect in cancer. 
Does this Cinnamic Acid, which can only be present 
in minute quantities, affect the micro-organism of 
cancer ? It can be taken in comparatively large doses 
without any injurious effect to the system. This does 
not, however, exclude its being extremely poisonous to 
low forms of life. We have an analogy in the case 
of quinine, which is much more posionoua to low 
forms of animal life than either nicotine or strychnine, 
and yet even in large doses does no harm to the 
human system, whilst the latter drugs act aa 
violent poisons even in minute quantities. I would 
therefore say to any one, give it a trial. If it does 
no good it certainly does no harm, and there is 
nothing else to offer to such patients by the medical 
profession but the knife, and even that with only a 
change of a cure. — Yours faithfully, M. D. 
YOUNG COCONUT PROPERTIES IN THE 
KURUNEGALA DISTRICT (CEYLON). 
A Rush for Land. 
Dear Sir, — Your correspondent omitted to make a 
point of this important fact in reporting the sale 
of the coconut land belonging to the estate of the 
late Mr. James de Silva, viz., that it is a young planta- 
tion, none of the trees having yet come into bear- 
ing. Under these circumstances, the sum of R15,000 
for the 43 acres odd will give you some idea of 
the price which coconut land can fetch in the 
market. There is one mistake in " Critic " 's out- 
spoken letter, which requires correction. The land 
has not been bought up, neither the half-assessed 
value paid by the planter, Mr. David Perera, who died 
a short time ago, gifting over the whole of his 
estate in favour of his son-in-law, on the condition 
that he should pay off his debts. 
What is known as the " Legal Nest " is situate on 
the Kandy road, about three or four miles from the 
town of Kurunegala. Here Mr. C. P. Markus, Proctor, 
has a desirable block over a hundred acres iju extent 
under coconut. Mr. Frank Modder, Proctor, has as 
large an acreage just opposite, similarly cultivated ; 
while a few miles away, Mr. Fred. Daniel has the 
best out of all these certainly, in a sixty-acre block 
which forms a delta, — the road bounds it on one 
side, the Kospotu Oya and Dedurn Oya on the re- 
maining two sides. Mr. Edgar Ferdinands of the 
Fiscal's Department is planting up a land with 
coconut this side of the river, and there is a large 
demand for land suitable for coconuts. Mr. Chas. F. 
Braine, on behalf of Messrs. Finlay Muir & Co., is 
opening out large tracts, purchased from natives 
mainly, about 16 miles from Kurunegala in the same 
direction. A dispensary will shortly be established 
here. Till then, Dr. Wright has been ordered to 
pay weekly visits to the sick. 
The minor road which branches off at the Mallowa- 
pitiya toll-bar, is the chief means of communication 
to this group of estates, and it will be well that the 
District Road Committee should see to its ""repairs 
It is in some places hardly passable, especially in 
rainy weather. The Superiiiteuden^ of Minor Roads 
requires waking up, 
