THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Feb. i, 1895. 
VARIOUS PLANTING NOTES. 
Patent Coconut Splitting Machine. — A 
machine has been invented to split up 8,000 to 
10,000 nuts a day efficiently for factory use. 
" Cheap Tea Plucking."— It is stated that 
the average price for plucking tea leaf for 1 
on an estate in Dikoya has been as low as 7*87 
cts. per lb. This is an extraordinarily cheap rata 
One would imagine that this very low average, 
would have been attained as the result of very 
coarse plucking, but from inquiries we learn this 
could not well be the case as the average price 
of made tea from the same estate for the year 
has been quite equal to previous records. This 
is more astonishing as we hear on every hand 
complaints made as to scarcity of labour' in this 
district, an experience common to the past year. 
Messrs. Marshall Sons & Co. — This firm has now 
removed into its new premises No. 99, Clive Street, 
which have been specially erected for th.in, and of 
which we gave a short description a few weeks back- 
erection of these buildings with theii somewhat 
imposing front is another advance in the improve- 
ments to 'the appearance of o ir commercial buildings 
and Messrs. Marshall Sons & Co. are to be congra- 
tulated in being one of the pioneers to erect offices 
worthy of this city, and which compare with those 
at home. — Indian Engineer. 
A Patent Tea Packer. — An invention which will 
commend itself to all interested in the proper and 
careful packing of tea preparatory to shipment, is on 
view just now on Messrs. Kilburn & Co's. premises. 
This well-known firm are inviting all concerned to 
view the machine at work. Visitors a: e received by 
Mr. F. G. Maguire the joint-inventor, and the work- 
ing of the machine fully explained. Not the least 
interesting part of the exhibit, if we can so call it, 
is the Hornsby-Akroyed Oil Engine which works 
the machine, and which in itself is a novelty. A 
fall description of the above will appear in our next 
issue. — Indian Engineer 
Purchase or Land in Travancobe— The large 
tract of land in Travancore, visited sometime ago 
by Mr. P. R. Buchanan, has been acquired by the 
Sylhet Tea Companies, and the work of open- 
ing will proceed at once, both in tea and 
coffee. Mr. Benzie will cross in a few weeks 
to make a suitable trace for outlet road. A c in- 
temporary says: — "The Superintendents at present 
on the Travancore land are remaining to work 
it in the new interests, and their ranks have been 
supplemented by a Ceylon planter, Mr. Graham of 
Udapussellawa, and by a planter from Pen 
Mr. Milne, Visiting Agent, says that good weather 
ruled when he was in Travancore, and the health 
of the natives was good, though cholera was very 
bad on the plains below, and as many as 40 deaths 
a day were occurring. This, though," did not effect 
the estates, as they get all their labour from Tinne- 
velly." 
Progress in Jamaica.— Sir Henry Blake 
replying to the addresses of welcome he received on 
his return to Jamaica, informed the inhabitants that 
he had reason to believe his connection with that 
island as Governor would not cease in March next, 
when, in the usual course, his term of administration 
would expire. In one of his speeches he said : " Look- 
ing forward as I do to the establishment of factories 
that may greatly increase the value of our bananas 
and of our coconuts; the possible establishment of 
a direct line of steamers to England by which our 
fruit may be regularly placed on the London market 
and the fact that capital, which always flows in the 
line of least resistance, is becoming alive to the fact 
that among all the islands of the West Indies, 
Jamaica stands forth pre-eminently, is being best 
supplied with roads, bridges, and other means of 
communication, I confess that I am hopeful for the 
future of Jamaica and grateful that I may be per- 
mitted to take my share in shaping it." • 
Artificial Plumbago.— The Daily chronicle 
of Dec. 25th hits the following paragraph : — 
M. Moissan is continuing his investigations by 
means of the enormous heat develo'wd in the electric 
furnace. His latest discovery is that any variety of 
carbon — charcoal at one end and diamonds nt • lie 
other — can be converted into graphite by sufficiently 
' raising the temperature. This graphite may be amor- 
phous or crystalline, with an ignition point in oxy- 
gen of about 660 de?.. while the stability of the sub- 
stance, as shown by its resistance to transformation 
into graphitic acid, depends on the temperature to 
which it has been raised. If M. Moissan's conclu- 
sions are correct, it is certain that we are within 
measurable distance of producing marketable dia- 
monds and. what is in our opinion much more im- 
portant, graphite of the fine quality of thp vanished 
Keswick vein, which filled the "lead pencils" of a 
generation now getting grey. At all events, what 
with discoveries made at low temperatures and others 
made at high ones, chemistry seems on the eve of 
some startling revelations. 
We do not think our plumbago merchants need 
be scared at this announcement. Some years 
ago there was a great deal in th" paper* about 
artificial quinine ; but the gen .ine article ha* 
not yet been superseded : nor will real plumbago, 
we expect. 
Ceylon Coffee Planters are to be found 
all over the world pretty well; and especially where 
there is any " boom" in planting, there are they 
ready to lend a hand, whether it be in North Bor- 
neo, Java, the Straits, Xyassaland, Brazil, Gua- 
I temala and, latest. Mexico. We have already no- 
ticed the connection of three ex-Ceylon planters 
with the enterprise in the last-ment ioned. Mr. W. J. 
Forsyth (the well-known Tropical Arjricultvrist as 
well as Observer correspondent) is hard at 
work on the Western slopes; Mr. Allan Black 
has been exploring and writing ; so has a third 
whose name escapes us as we write ; and now we 
have Mr. E. O. Darley, formerly of the Knuckles 
j on the see i • The Mexican Investor — an English 
i monthly chioJy devoted to "Mining" — has in- 
1 terviewed Mr. Darley with the following result : — 
"I have just returned from an extensive trip 
through the Coffee districts of Southern Mexico and 
have found the Coffee interest all that it was re- 
p.esented to be and far superior to anything I 
had imagined. With few exceptions, the soil was of 
the richest quality and practically inexhaustible. As 
a rule, the Coffee trees were entirely unpruml and 
not weeded, and yu: they were vigoro 19 and healthy 
and were bearing astonishingly one pou.id per tree of 
four years and higher up according to age. In some 
cases I saw trees, ten or twelve years old, literally 
bending under the load of berries. 
"Under the same condition of cultivation, or 
rather lack of cultivation, that these trees were 
thriving in, coffee trees in Ceylon would hardly exist 
and certainly would bear no crop at all. I attribute 
this to the richness of the soil and the fine climate, 
which is especially adapted for coffee, and gives also 
wonderful results in sugar cane and similar crops. 
During my trip, I saw sugar cane four months old, 
ten feet long and one and one half inches in diameter, 
growing under the rich alluvial bottom lands. I also 
saw-many large rubber trees growing wild in these 
coffee lands, that I suspect with hardly any care or 
attention could be made to yield a good re- 
I venue. 
" Considering the very cheap price of these lands, 
as compared with Ceyion and India, where coffee 
lands readily sell for fifty dollars per acre and more 
and the still cheaper cost of bringing a coffee plan- 
tation into bearing, as compaied with those countries, 
j the conditions, for coffee growing in Mexico are 
immeasurably superior, and an immense fortune can 
• be realised in a few years by any one engaging in 
this pursuit in Mexico with a very moderate amount 
1 of capital." 
