470 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Jan. i, 1895. 
AN OLD CEYLON PLANTER AND HIS 
EXPERIENCES IN SOUTHERN INDIA. 
Dear Sir, — I have no sympathy with the imperti- 
nence of taking advantage of hospitality and tin n 
writing to the press about it; but as Sir. Payne is an old 
Ceylon man I have asked his permission to send a 
few notes, so that any of his old friends inuy .see 
them, — alas 1 how few are left !1 
I want to introduce your readers to as fino a 
specimen of the British Colonist as ever left the 
old eountry. — John Payne of Talliar Udanialpet. 
Standing 6 feet in his stockings and broad in propor- 
tion with handsome regular features, and iron grey 
beard and hair, Mr. Payne's face strongly reminded 
me of Tennyson. With a castiron constitution Mad 
a big deep voice, Mr. Payne might at first appear 
fruff and narsh ; but when you see the kindly look 
e gives you, you feel at once at home iu the pre- 
sence of no ordinary man. 
Porn in 1835 on the 21st June, Mr. Payne came 
Out to Patiagama in Hewaheta in 1st March 1851 
and with dysentery was invalided home in '59, and 
after two years came out to Pitawella Oya where 
his old malady again attacked him and he 
was forced to leave the country and came in 
1862 to take charge of Arbuthnot & Co.'e 
Mysore places and since then has had good health, 
and as proprietor and manager, been in most 
Of the South Indian districts, and is at present, 
Manager of Taliar property, some 500 acres of coffee 
in fine heart, and as beautiful order as any estate 
in the island, and on which, not a weed is to be 
found from end to end. 
The hospitality we received hern and on the rest of 
our trip was great, and Mr. Payne kept us in fits 
of laughter with his old Ceylon stories, especially 
those of Jack Tyndall, who was his neighbour and 
friend. 
The following account taken from the Pioneer, is 
an excellent description of Mr. Payne's elephant 
capture, and perhaps, you will give it for the bene- 
fit of your readers*. Since then, he caught a huge 
man-eating tiger, 9 feet 4 inches long, close to the 
estate which is, I am told, about the first in- 
stance of this being done, in a trap with a fall- 
ing door. 
Mrs, Payne had a collection of beautiful skins of 
different wild animals, which live iu the jungle here, 
all properly prepared by a taxidermist, and I ex- 
pect the recipients of them at home will excite the 
envy of their lady friends when they are converted 
into muffs and rugs. 
I was much struck with the cleverly executed oil 
paintings by the charming daughter of our host and 
Hostess, of the exquisite wild flowers that grow in 
profusion over this district ; we have nothing like 
them in Ceylon, and the jungle is full of equally 
beautiful orchids. D. 
MICA IN TRAVANCORE. 
Stinsford Tea House, Veyangoda, Dec. 11, 1894. 
gin, — "While reading the Ceylon Observer of the 10th 
inst., an article, " Mica in Travancore " (see page 475) 
struck me very much — more so, the place where it was 
found being " Neyoor ". In the year 1830 my father, Rev. 
Harvey George Ashton, was an Assistant Missionary 
under Rev. Charles Meade, of the L. M. S. My 
■father' 8 bungalow was built near a lake or tank ; 
called Thata Colum, or Kakapon Colum meaning 
.—Kakapon Mica, Colum, lake or tank. I .was sent 
to school at an early age, and on returning home 
at the age of fifteen, to my great astonishment 
I found the glass doors and windows ornamented 
with a kind of gold-coloured paper cut out in fret- 
work. I could not make out what it was, and on 
questioning, I was told by my grandfather, 
Sergeant Murray of the 12th Regiment English 
* It is very long, but most interesting by a prac- 
tised press writer, and includes a description of the 
•eountry in which the Sylhet Tea Company is ex- 
. pected to invest : we shall give it all in a Supplement, 
very shortly.— Ed. T.A, 
Infantry (mother's father) then pensioned, that 
it was called Mica. I well recollect the old man 
having nothing to do, going to this tank and bringing 
loads of mica and strewing the useless bits before 
the bungalow and making ornaments with the large 
sheets. He showed lue a block from which he took 
several layers of sheets to 2 feet or J 8 inche» ; 
the sheets were thin as an onion skin, and some 
thicker. Next year I will be <i5 yea** old, 
and fifty years from Neyoor. and I am 6ure 
if it be explored, they may find a valuablo 
mine of mica. I also recollect a large solid bit of 
mica about half cwt (a block) found while digging 
a well about half-a-mile from the tank I referred" te 
—Yours faithfully, JOSHUA A8HTON. 
CEYLON AND INDIAN COCONUTS. 
Dec. 14. 
Dear Sin, — With reference to your leader and the 
letter on coconuts in India ; when "in South India lately 
I was much struck with the number of nuts on the coco- 
nut trees in the districts through which we travelled ; but 
as the coconuts for sale in the bazaars in the villages 
were certainly not over one quarter of the size of 
an average Ceylon one, I think this probably accounts 
for the large number of nuts on the trees as compared 
with what we are accustomed to in Ceylon. 
I give you the address of a gentleman who will 
be able to procure you samples and think it pro- 
bable there will not be much difference in the weight 
of copra produced per tree. L. D. 
[Perhaps friends in Madura as well as Travancore 
seeing this letter ard the rest of the discussion in 
the Urerlanil Obserrer or Tropical Agriculturist will 
give us their experience. — Ei>. T.A.] 
THE INFLUENCE OP THE MOON ON 
WEATHER, CLOUDS, YEGETATION, &C 
Deaii Sir, — With reference to the request of ■ Ig- 
noramus," in re the influence of the moon on growth. 
I should say that I do not think that any promi- 
neut botanist has thought the matter of enough 
importance to merit notice. Astronomers have occa- 
sionally delivered themselves of a few remarks on 
the influence of the moon on the weather. 
Professor Newcomb, who was for a time in the 
U. S. Observatory, says: — "A striking illustration of 
the fallibility of the human judgment when not dis- 
ciplined by scientific training is afforded by the 
opinions wnich have at various times obtained cur- 
rency respecting a supposed influence of the moon 
on the weather. Neither in the reason of the case 
nor in observations do we find any real support for 
such a theory. It must, however, "be admitted that 
opinions of this character are not confined to the 
uneducated. In scientific literature several papers are 
found in which long series of meteorological obser- 
vations are collated, which indicate that the mean 
temperature or the amount of rain had been subject 
to a slight variation depending on the age of the 
moon. But there was no reason to believe that these 
changes arose from any other cause than the acci- 
dental vicissitudes to which the w-eather is at all 
times subject. There is, perhaps, higher authority for 
the opinion that the rays of the full moon clear away 
clouds : but if we reflect that the effect of the sun 
itself in this respect is not very noticeable, and that 
the full moon gives only one — eight-thousandth of 
the heat of the sun, this opinion will appear ex- 
tremely improbable." 
Chamber's Encyclopedia says: — "On the supposition 
that the moon might also affect organic nature, ex- 
periments were instituted by Mead, Hoffman and 
others, but no certain results were attained. The 
chemical effects of the moon's rays are, so far as is at 
present known, feeble, though in particular in stanc es 
they exhibit an actinism as powerful as that of the 
sun. Decomposition of animal matter takes place 
more rapidly in moonshine than in darkness." Pro- 
fessor Alexander of New Jersey College says: — " The 
