March i, 1895.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
633 
CLIMATIC CHANGES IN INDH. 
This is the title of an article in the Asian 
of the 22nd ul b. which is not altogether devoid 
of local interest and for that reason we venture 
to reproduce in summary some of its main points. 
In the first place it is shown how the growth 
of population renders it absolutely necessary that 
steps should he taken to enlarge the means of 
subsistence. It is admitted that the extension 
of road and railway communication goes a 
long way towards relieving congested districts ; 
and while it is agreed that native prejudice 
forms a very considerable obstacle to the em- 
ployment of im-proved nva&hods of agriculture, 
it is pointed out that great harm is indicted 
on fanning by Government throus'h unwise laws 
and taxation, the assertion being made that 
the impost on salt very injuriously affects the 
health and condition of cattle and domesticated 
animals as well as their owners, and that it ought 
therefore to he abolished at once. The soil is 
also deprived of its best fertilizer through cat- 
tle dung being used us a substitute for fuel 
which is very scarce. What the Asian advo- 
cates as a remedy is the energetic promotion of 
tree-planting and the re-afforestation of tracts 
that, from various causes, have been denuded of 
their woods, and the provision of coal and other 
fuel which of course necessitates the opening of 
new mines as well as the development of those 
already in existence, and the railways carrying 
the coal at low rates. In this connection it is 
worth recalling the fact that in the recent 
discussion on the Kelani Valley Railway at the 
meeting of our Planters' Association, Mr. Kingsford 
is reported to have entertained the belief that 
if greater facilities were afforded upcountry for the 
unloading of trucks, coal would be far more largely 
used on estates. Our Calcutta contemporary notes 
that a more liberal policy has been adopted by the 
Indian Government in f a vourof villagers and farmers 
near forest reserves ; but points out how the 
Forest Department itself is unduly starved, very 
justly characterizing as unwise cand short-sighted 
such a policy towards departments which develop 
the resources of the country. The benefits of 
irrigation are commented upon and likewise the 
adverse results that arise from the disturbance 
thereby of the physical conditions of the country, 
the engineer in many cases omitting to make 
provision for taking off the water th he has 
been successful in throwing on to the soil, and 
in others interfering witli the natural drainage, 
thus producing water-logging on the one side 
and drought on the other, the charge in short 
against him being that lie has introduced malaria 
where it was previously unknown. The conclud- 
ing part of the article regarding the effect on 
the climate of parts of India by irrigation, forestry, 
and clearing of jungle, we quote as follows: — 
T.vo opposite effects are resulting in two widely 
Bep&rated regions owing to the agency of in in. In 
Assam and the Terai the climate is beyond question 
stea lily improving wherever there have been large 
clearances of jungle and drainage of swamps mainly 
undertaken toe the sake of tea cultivation. The 
imp irtation of coolie labour into Assam, and tbe 
.1 .1 h settlement of the country from Bengal — a 
process which may be trusted to proceed with 
increased rapidity as railway communication with 
India is made — nave modified the climate very 
perceptibly in unite recent years. A similar result 
may oo oxpeclcd in Burma, as the country is opened 
out, and settled cultivation encroaches on the forests 
and releases the stagnant water of swamps and 
shallow hikes In the Punjab and bind the comple- ] 
tiou of niinv irrigation schemes has added largely 
to the cultivable area, but the excessively dry , 
climate is less characteristic of these regions, and 
in many cases, as we have said, malarial fever has 
acquired a firm lodgment in the soil. These results 
are not, of course, new or surprising, for a similar 
theory has been noticed in the United States, and 
the present condition of many lands in Asia now 
desert, or but partially cultivable, which were once 
proverbial for fertility, tells the same story ; but in 
India, owing to the extremes of physical conditions 
that have been dealt with — on this side heavy jungle 
and swamps, on that side arid desert — and the 
efficiency of modern methods, the changes have been 
more marked. It remains now to keep those changes 
within control so far as they affect the hygienic 
condition of the people, and to accompany works 
designed to secure given advantageous results with 
precautions preventing other results not advantageous 
from being brought into being. 
♦ 
COFFEE AND CACAO PROSPECTS. 
Speaking this week with the Secretary of one 
of the largest of the Companies connected with 
Ceylon, he told me in reply to my questioning 
that the prospects for their coffee this season 
were far from good. They expected, he said, 
a very short crop, and he was by no means 
sanguine as to the maintenance of present good 
prices obtainable for it. As to cacao, lie remarked 
that after all the Ceylon product had only fallen 
to its real value. The prices formerly got for 
Ceylon cacao, he said, were strictly fancy 
prices, and had all along been dependent upon 
the large buying in America that has now 
ceased. On my asking wiry the cessation had 
come about, he remarked that for years past 
Ceylon cacao had been a fashionable article of 
consumption in the United States. It was the 
fashion, he remarked, at New York dinner 
parties to have toasted cocoa sweets placed on 
the table at dessert, and these were largely par- 
taken of by guests. Pale Ceylon cacao was 
especially valued for affording to these sweets a 
pleasing colour. When the late financial troubles 
occurred in America, luxuries, of course, were 
the first item of expenditure to be abandoned. 
Entertaining was greatly restricted, and the ex- 
pensive chocolate bon-bon fell out of demand. 
People could no longer afford fancy prices in 
order to secure the pale colour for their choco- 
late sweets they had formerly valued so highly. 
As the result the Americans were now buying 
little or no Ceylon cacao. My interviewer 
doubted very much if the demand now ceased 
would ever revive, anyway he was of opinion 
that Ceylon cacao was now fetching all that 
it was really worth, and that even at pre- 
sent prices it would be a profitable article to 
cultvate in Ceylon. — London Cor. 
PLANTING AND PRODUCE. 
Japan and run Russian Tea Market. — Indian and 
Ceylon planters should note that the Japanese are 
doing their very best to push trade in tea with Russia. 
A Japanese company has already been formed in 
Tokio with this object, under the protection of the 
former Japanese Minister of Commerce. An agent of 
the company has arrived in Odessa with samples of 
Japanese tea, which it is stated have given great 
satisf iction. Japanese tea is comparatively cheap, 
and the Japanese consider there is a good chance of 
obtaining a footing in the Russian markets. Agen- 
cies are being started in Moscow, Kieff, Novgorod, 
and other towns in Russia. 
National Prosperity and the Demand for Tea 
and Srr. mi. — During the de'oUe on the amendment 
of the Aildress in the House of Commons, in which 
the question of th? unemployed was discussed, Mr, 
Shaw Jjofcvre laid great stress upon the increase 
