Ja*. i, 1895.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, 
469 
To the Editor. 
GODAVERI DISTRICT : THE PARADISE OF 
THE COCONUT PALM : 200 TO 500 
NUTS PER TREE PER ANNUM! 
Nov. 30. 
Sir, — In continuation of my letter regarding the 
growth of coconuts I have the honor to report that 
on further enquiry I find that my estimate of 200 
nuts per annum was a very moderate one for good- 
fruiting trees in the Godaveri District. 
2. M. R. Ry L. Venkatakristnayyagarn Tahsildar 
of Narasaraopet Taluk in this district and late Sub- 
Magistrate of Amalapur Taluk in the Godaveri Dis- 
trict, informs me that it is a very common thing 
indeed for trees grown in topes in that Taluk to 
yield 300 nuts per annum, aud in backyards — where 
they can be better supervised — 500 nuts per annum. 
He has frequently seen with his own eyes bunches 
produoed monthly, yielding from 25 to 40 nuts each ; 
and the villagers of that Taluk, where the trees pro- 
duce best, are called Ambajipet and Bandarlanka. 
3. He further informs me, that the longevity of 
the trees is from 30 to 50 years, usually about 40 
years : and that he has seen a few nuts produced 
when the tree is only 3 years old. He states that 
the tree3 are highly manured and frequently watered, 
and carefully tended by both males and females of 
the family ; and that the soil is black cotton mixed 
with sand. 
4. In regard to transplantation, he states that 
the young trees are invariably transplanted ; but he 
believes, as a rule, that the number of times is only 
from three to four ; and not seven, as I originally heard. 
5. J. T. Lever, Esq., Forest Settlement Officer, 
states that the best coconuts grown in the Ganjam 
District are at Kullada in Gumsur Taluk ; that there 
the growers invariably transplant three times, and 
tend with copious manure and salt. It must be men- 
tioned, however, that Kullada is an inland village 
some 60 miles from the sea, and does not get the 
sea breezes charged with salt. 
6 At Russellkonda in Ganjam District, a few 
miles from Kullada I planted a few eoconuts, and 
as they did not thrive well I wa3 recommended to 
try fixing a small bag of salt in the heart of the 
tree. I did this; and the trees grew much better. 
At Dachopalli in the Kistna District I hear that a 
similar procedure was tried, (Dachepalli being about 
50 miles from the sea;) and trees which had not 
previously borne fruit, although about 15 years old, 
almost immediately began to produce. 
7. I have now quoted names and places and my 
facts can, therefore, be verified. — I have the honor 
to be, sir, your most obedient servant, 
A. W. LUSHINGTON, 
District Forest Officer, Kistna. 
PLANTERS AND FIBRE INDUSTRIES. 
Dimbula, Dec, 4. 
Dear Sir, — Your leader of 3rd inst. makes 
my fingers _ tingle to get at the coin, when headed 
''lUira Redicicus." In the days of the shrinking 
king coffee I early turned my attention to fibre. We 
had only ready at hand the common aloe (Faurei'oya 
giganteaj, our common plantain and somo very isolated 
patches of Now Zealand flax. A friend and near 
gncihbour of mine was also imbued with the same 
thought and ho secured the services of the (I be- 
lieve) only Death and Elwood machine ever intro- 
duced into Ceylou. It happened that I had more 
easily used connecting gear and I got ovor the machine 
and attached it to a wheel am my estate. We both 
laboured with it for weeks on the only fibre growing 
lants wo had, the aloe, plantain and Now Zoaland 
ax. A moro complote failure in mechanism, 
while, at the aamo time, it was nothing more 
or loss than a part -Jof the oomnwn threshing 
machine, used for gonoration-i in Ssotland *ho 
69 
beating drum, which at a quick speed drives 
out the grain from the straw, but in adopting and 
patenting it, had they only also adopted the feed- 
ing and holding pair of rollers, which firmly, 
holds the straw while the beater drives the grain 
from it, they would have possibly made a success, 
as the rollers would have crushed the fleshy leaf 
of the aloe and rendered it easy to beat the useless 
matter from it and then by the means of a end- 
less web, the beaten leaf could have travelled on 
and been received at the other end of the machine, fin- 
ished and ready for final washing and drying. 
Instead of which, you feed from hand aloe leaves into 
the beater, and when they were half through, had 
to pull them back, in a reverse action of beater, 
which cut and chopped the fibre, and re-introdueo 
the unbeaten half, and pass it on and pull it 
back, during which process I estimated the loss in 
fibre at 25 per cent. I made a ton of fibre with the 
machine, sent it home and had an invoice of £13 
odd sent me. 
The machine was nothing more or less than Dayid 
Wilson's coconut fibre beater, which was taken from 
the old thresher of 70 years ago. 
Had the thing been worth the while, or fibre worth 
cultivating, an engineering friend, whom I took to 
see it working and pointed him out its defects, agreed 
with me, it could have been perfected, but it was 
a " gigantic failure, " because they did not adopt the 
other part of the threshing machine, viz., the feeding rol» 
lers to crush and hold the leaf till threshed, gradually 
passing it on, as finished to be received on an end' 
less revolving web and carried onward, instead drag- 
ging back this unfinished leaf and introducing the 
unbeaten half, to be submitted to a similar process 
thereby cutting and hacking 25 percent of the fibre 
and more I believe. I have ever since looked on 
fibre machines with suspicion. Put them to the prac- 
tical test, always. I have given to some of our now, 
many young aspiring engineers who know about 
threshing-mills a hint that may make them a 
fortune, if you were to change your heading to 
« Fibre Redivivus."— Your faithfully, A PLANTER, 
TEA AND FLUSH. 
Up country, Dec. 4. 
Dear Sir, — Your other readers will probably join 
me in thanking "Jaffna College" for his interesting 
quotations from Prof. Asa Gray. But is the hot 
season in Ceylon the period of diminished flush ? 
May I ask your correspondent, who presumably 
has a good reference library at hand, if he can find 
a good terse quotation from some standard botanical 
work to shew in sufficiently polysyllabic phraseology, 
for the special benefit of "K.T.B.", how impossible, 
it is that moonshine per se can help flush at all, 
"K.T.B."'s attitude appears to be that of Tennyson's 
" Northern Farmer," regarding the theological dis- 
courses of his clergyman. IGNORAMUS. 
" SPENT TEA LEAVES " BOUGHT UP BY 
NATIVES IN INDIA—? IN CEYLON. 
South India, Deo. 4. 
Dear Sir, — The India and Ceylon pap3rs are furnish- 
ing the details of a very important prosecution of a 
Loudon firm for the re-habilitation of spent tea loaves 
which leaves had been bought up at restaurants and 
treated with machinery. It seems that there is an 
Act of Parliament which comprehends such re-habili- 
tated tea leaves under the head of "fabricated " tea. 
The prosecuted parties were convicted and fined. 
Now in some stations in India natives have for some 
time made it their business to go round to the clubs 
<&c, and get hold of spent leaves and treat them in 
the saune way as in the case abovenientkmed. But 
we have no law in India to enable us to stop this 
practice. I therefore ask whether - it is not desirable 
tli at the proper authorities be moved to take steps to 
have the Act of Parliament above referred to, ex- 
tended to Ceylon and India. As the looal tea sales 
Iin India (and also I presume in Ceylon) are all by 
packet, we are more at the mercy of any such fraudu- 
• lent measures than are purchasers in England. — Yours 
1 faithfully, PLANTER. 
