7S« 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[Mav i, 1895. 
The Indkiknoi a Uih gs of India. — Short descriptive . 
notices of the Principal Medical Products met with in 
British India, by Rai Bahadur Kanny Loll Dej 
c.i.e., Graduate of the Medical College of Bengal 
late Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Examiner 
to Government, etc., etc. Second Edition. Revised 
and entirely Re-written, Calcutta, Thacker, Spink Si 
Co., 1895.— A copy of this useful pamphlet has to be 
acknowledged. 
Labour and South Mvsoue Planters Asso- 
ciation. — From the Animal Report of this body, 
Just received, we quote one paragraph of special 
interest at this time : — 
Lauor Agency. — A new feature in the history of 
coffee planting in Mysore is the establishment of a 
labor agency. We welcome it as a necessary insti- 
tution in these times, but we consider it would have 
been wiser on the part of the promoters had they 
started it in a more tentative manner, and gradually 
feeling their way, developed it into an agency to 
supply labour all over Southern India. We fear that 
through want of a more perfect knowledge of the 
exact requirements of the employer on the one hand, 
and of the character and capabilities of the employed 
on the other, mistakes mav be made whicli will 
jeopardise the enterprise. We consider that such 
questions, us commission to maistries. security from 
the coolies, and the means of recovering advances 
from absconders, should bo Bottled before negotiations 
on a large scale are entered into: and that we our- 
selves should agree to act in concert with each other, 
as regards advances, wages, and commissions, so as 
to avoid reverting to the same position of constantly 
increasing advances and unfixed wages and commis- 
sions, as we have been with regard to moodel and 
ghaut labour. — It seeems to ns that an opportunity 
is being offered to escape from a situation that has 
yearly been becoming more untenable, and that we 
should use every endeavour to induce all interested 
to avail themselves of it- 
British Central Africa : Nyassaland vs. 
UGANDA. — The London correspondent of the local 
"Times"' seems to have got a little "mixed" 
in the following paragraph taken from his weekly 
letter : — 
Nyassaland. — The political features of the week 
have been the new Speaker's election and the newly- 
discovered route to Uganda, by means of river na- 
vigation, shortening the journey by one-half. This 
is by way of the river Kagere, a stream hitherto 
practically unexplored. This river, which discharges 
into the Victoria Nyanza, Mr. Elliot discovered to 
be navigable to within six or eight days' journey 
north of Tanganyika, and by this route it was pos- 
sible to reach Uganda in about eighteen days of 
land travel, instead of the usual journey of two 
months' duration from the coast. This is of import- 
ance because there will be a great opening for coffee 
planting in the higher altitudes and a Ceylon planter 
declares that, in his opinion, Nyassaland was better 
in this respect than India or Ceylon. As good land 
for coffee planting can be purchased for five shillings 
an acre, there is ample opportunity for young Eng- 
lishmen with capital. But what about coffee leaf-dis- 
ease in German East Africa? 
It ought to he generally known that Uganda is 
the " hinterland of British East Africa and 
that all German East Africa lies between it and 
British Central Africa or Nyassaland. Of course 
it is possible, the reference may be to travelling 
via the Zambezi, Shire and Nyassaland to Tan- 
ganyika and thence on to the Victoria Nyanza 
and Uganda; but Uganda must be fully 2,500 
miles from the mouth of the Zambezi by this 
route. Let it also he specially noted that the 
German plantation where coffee leaf disease has 
appeared is 1,200 to 1,500 miles from Nyassaland. 
A good . atlas is indispensable in writing about 
Africa in these days. 
COFVKK IN II Al l I AM.. We am very p)ea-«-,l 
to learn from Mr. Carson that bin hue cuftee 
property Gonawotava (whose first field »e saw 
planted in 18(15) is doing so well. Mr. Carson 
tells us : — " My best field of coffee here, 105 acres, 
has averaged six cwt. per acre for the last three 
years, ami this vear gives between 8 mm) 10 cwt." 
— This is magnificent and we trust the tree.- may 
not sillier; but they are sure to be sustained ; 
for as an old planter used to say in the palmy 
days of coffee, "there is such a thing as a pro- 
ducing manure, and when the crop does appear, 
a sustaining manure. " 
"Indian Fokkstkh."— Kor March contents : -Original 
Articled ami Translation*. - The reproduction of High Foreat 
(Traiislalion) No. 2 ; Wood for U* boxes, by A.H., Raising 
box from seed, by Mian Moti Singh ; The Flowering of 
the thorny Bamboo, by Jasper NidwUs ; A large Banyan 
Tree, by ('. (i. Rogers. IL Correspondence. -lommuta- 
tion of Rights ; Aeornsas a tanning material, letter fruui 
F A Leete: Eucalyptus Oil, letter from F A l>*te : KhiuIkjos 
and Famine, letter from .1 NUIiet ; De|>artwentHl felling- 
in the (' P letter horn " Coo-ee." ILL Official Papers aad 
Intelligence. — Notes on Forest Operation* ; Note on gird- 
ling in Tharrawaddv, by II Sl.ide. IV. Reviews. Annual 
Forest Administration Report for lSHl-M for Madras. V. 
Shikar ami TraveL — Pigsiirking Extraordinary. by Tawke : 
Elephant-catching Operation-, b\ (1 Hadfleld. VI. Ex- 
trai l-. Note- and (faerie-. Alrieau Mahogany ; The Forest - 
of Hi: natj lial I m::in IE \meti: : Timber : - f t h ftird- 
wieh Islands ; Red Cedar DouTH ; Buried Wood ; I'kinting 
Shifting Sands, vii. Timber and Produce Trade. 
Analysis or L'va Boils tin Yf.\ks A«;o.— to 
Mr. Herbert White's Manual of l'va. there <tecnr« 
the follow ing paragraph: — 
Iu 1836 Government called upon the various Agent- 
and their assistants to forward for analysis, at Cal- 
cutta, specimens of soils of their districts — one 
specimen of surface soil, one at a depth of 1 A ft., and 
oue at a depth of 3 ft., but the specimens were not 
to be taken from the tops of ridges or from the very 
Lottonis of valleys. I do not know what was the re- 
sult of this. 
The Planting representative should ask Govern- 
ment to cause a thorough starch to he made in 
their records, iu the hope of finding the results 
of this analysis. If made known at the time, 
it may have influenced Sir Win. Reid and other 
early planters ingoing so far as EJvato select land 
for coffee plantations ; while Dimhula and Mikoya 
were considered too high and too wet. 
The Public Tea .Sale Conditions. Follow - 
ing up the letter to the Home and Colonial M/ii/ 
which we have already quoted with regard to the 
desirability of altering the London tea sale con- 
ditions, the following from Messrs. Wilson, 
Smithett & Co.'s circular will he read with in- 
terest : — 
It is felt that the decision in a recent arbitration case 
will necessitate the revision of clause 4 of the Public 
Sale Conditions, which provides, that teas " shall be 
ready for Delivery on the day of sale 1 excepting pack- 
ages requiring coopering, which will be completed 
without delay.)" That, as matters now stand, teas 
always are practically ready for Delivery on the day of 
sale is undoubted, although three clear woiking days 
are allowable for the Delivery of weight notes. It is 
scarcely credible that the original {ranters of the 
clause intended that so absurdly strict an interpreta- 
tion should be put upon the words that opportunity 
shoidd be given to the buyer who has purchased a dear 
lot to repudiate his purchase on a technicality, as con- 
sidering the amount of work to be done by the ware- 
house people after a sale in regulating, the buyers' re- 
turns throughout the different breaks, it is a physical 
impossibility that every chest offered in a heavy sale 
should be fastened up the same afternoon. Hitherto it 
1 has generally been understood that the words were 
directed against the hypothecation of good* offered for 
' sale by Public Auction. 
