April  i,  1893.]  THE  TROPICAL  AGRICULTURIST. 
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very  marked  results,  namely,  to  old  garden  ground 
which  has  year  after  year  received  heavy  dressings 
of  farmyard  manure,  and  which  have  become  sour 
and  profitless.  Mr.  J.  Wright,  in  a paper  read  be- 
fore the  Royal  Horticultural  Society  in  1889,  described 
a striking  but  by  no  means  uncommon  instance  of 
this.  When  he  took  possession  of  the  garden  in 
question,  he  found  it  like  a mass  of  humus,  nothing 
would  grow  satisfactorily,  the  soil  being  “ poisoned 
with  humic  acid.”  He  gave  it  a good  dose  of  lime 
(a  bushel  per  rod),  together  with  potash  and  bone 
meal.  “ The  effeot,”  says  Mr.  Wright,  “ was  magical, 
and  the  crops  of  Potatoes  and  Peas,  where  they 
would  not  grow  before,  were  remarkable.”  The  late 
Mr.  Shirley  Hibberd,  on  the  conclusion  of  the  above 
paper,  remarked  on  the  too  frequent  neglect  of  lime 
as  a corrective  of  acidity ; and  Mr.  G.  Wythes — 
than  whom,  perhaps,  no  one  knows  better  how  old 
garden  soils  should  be  treated— expressed  himself  in 
favour  of  lime,  soot,  and  wood-ashes,  where  organic 
manures  alone  had  been  given  for  a long  series  of 
years . 
The  Various  Forms  or  Lime. 
As  a general  rule  as  indicated  above,  quick-lime  (put 
on  in  its  caustic  condition,  or  slaked  by  adding 
water,  or  by  leaving  it  exposed  to  the  atmosphere 
for  a time),  is  preferable  for  heavy  soils,  and  may 
be  applied  at  the  rate  of  from  2 to  9 tons  per  acre. 
It  should  never  be  applied  with  manures  containing 
ammonia,  the  latter  being  liable  to  be  driven  off 
thereby. 
Chalk  is  suitable  for  light  sandy  soils,  and  can  be 
given  in  about  twice  as  heavy  dressings  as  caustic  lime. 
Marls,  being  variable  mixtures  of  carbonate  of  lime 
and  clay,  are  suited  to  light  land,  the  dressing  being 
regulated  by  the  proportion  of  lime  contained. 
Gypsum,  or  sulphate  of  calcium  can  be  used  with 
ordinary  manure,  as  it  is  a “fixer”  of  ammonia. 
Gas  Lime  is  simply  slaked  lime  which  has  been 
used  in  the  purification  of  coal-gas.  It  contains, 
when  fresh  from  the  works,  calcium  sulphide  and 
sulphite,  and  these  substances  are  injurious  to  plants. 
After  exposure  to  air,  however,  they  are  oxidised  and 
form  sulphate  of  lime  (gypsum),  and  consequently 
become  innocuous.  Gas-lime  is  useful  for  mixing  in 
the  “ rot-heap,”  hastening  the  decomposition  of 
leaves,  weeds,  &c. 
It  should  be  remembered  that  bones,  bone-meal, 
dissolved  bones,  and  superphosphate  all  contain  more 
or  less  calcium ; therefore,  liming  is  not  so  necessary 
where  any  of  these  are  applied  in  quantity. — C.  W. 
Herbet  Greaves,  Marlborough  Lodge,  Bournemouth 
West. — Gardeners 1 Chronic’s. 
PINEAPPLES. 
A meeting  of  pine-apple  growers  was  recently  held 
in  Brisbane,  under  the  auspices  of  the  Department 
of  Agriculture,  to  discuss  the  question  of  shipping 
pineapples  to  England  and  other  places.  The 
necessity  of  finding  good  markets  for  Queensland 
pineapples  has,  it  appears,  been  keenly  felt,  and  it 
was  pointed  out  that  as  the  harvests  in  the  two 
hemispheres  occur  at  different  times  of  the  year  there 
was  a good  opening  for  such  fruit  in  the  northern 
hemisphere.  It  was  also  announced  as  the  result  of 
experiments  which  have  been  carried  on  with  the 
Queensland  fruit  that  the  extreme  limit  of  time 
during  which  a pine-apple  would  keep  was  about  nine 
weeks  : a few  of  tbe  pinesdecayed,  but  the  remainder 
were  good  and  sweet,  though  the  fruit  in  all  cases 
shrank  about  25  per  cent,  of  weight.  The  price  of 
the  pine-apples  in  San  Francisco  from  July  to 
September  was  stated  to  be  from  8d  to  16d,  and  for 
the  rest  of  the  year  the  average  price  was  Is  8d  to 
2s  4d,  They  commanded  the  highest  prices  from 
Ootober  to  April,  as  in  the  summer  the  people  were 
deluged  with  local  fruit.  The  voyage  from  Brisbane 
to  San  Francisco  was  thirty  days,  and  pines,  it  was 
said,  would  certainly  keep  that  time  with  ease.— = 
ft  A Press, 
THE  WHOLESALE  TEA  DEALERS’  ASSOCIA 
TION  AND  GRADES  OF  TEA. 
Although  Mr.  Peek’s  letter  to  the  Seoretary  of  the 
Ceyion  Association  in  London  on  the  subject  of 
the  grading  of  teas,  was  not  written  on  behalf  of  the 
Association  of  whioh  that  gentleman  is  President, 
it  is  impossible  wholly  to  separate  that  body  from 
the  advice  tendered.  Mr.  Francis  Peek’s  name  Sb  bo 
well  known  to  all  who  are  engaged,  or  are  in- 
terested in  the  tea  trade,  that  wa  are  oertain  that 
his  advioe  will  be  read  with  attention,  and  that 
it  will  reoeive  from  Ceylon  planters,  especially, 
its  due  meed  of  consideration.  We  are  ourselves 
the  more  inolined  to  give  full  consideration  to 
tbe  letter,  because  the  advioe  given  in  it,  coincides 
in  material  particulars  with  suggestions  we  have 
ourselves  made  on  previous  occasions.  It  will  be 
universally  acknowledged,  that  Mr.  Peek  is 
correot  in  assigning  great  importance  to  the 
question  of  how  to  prevent  or  modify  frequent 
and  considerable  fluctuations  in  the  prioe  of  tea. 
These  have  of  late  years  been  so  serious  and  so 
numerous,  that  it  has  beoome  very  difficult  for 
tea  growers  to  calculate  beforehand  with  any 
certainty  upon  the  amount  of  tbe  return  they 
may  look  forward  to  obtaining  for  their 
season’s  work.  Necessarily  this  constitutes  a 
great  obstaole  to  the  equable  prosperity  of  our 
tea  enterprise.  The  fluctuation  to  the  produoer 
results  far  too  often  in  financial  disappointment, 
to  be  pleasing  to  him.  Any  course,  there- 
fore, whioh  may  tend  to  remove  the  cause  of 
this  will,  we  are  sure,  be  readily  adopted  by 
the  planters  should  it  be  found  by  them  to  be 
practicable  to  follow  it.  The  quotations  from  Mr. 
Peek’s  oommunioation  given  in  our  London  Letter 
today  should  enable  our  readers  fully  to  realize, 
not  alone  the  oause  assigned  by  that  gentleman 
for  the  injurious  fluctuations  referred  to,  but 
the  method  by  which  he  proposes,  in  a very  con. 
siderable  degree,  to  put  a stop  to  them.  Briefly 
stated  it  may  be  said  that  the  attempt  made  by 
our  planters  to  accommodate  their  production  to 
the  latest  demands  of  the  home  market  bb  to 
the  qualities  of  tea,  is  assigned  as  the  most  fruit- 
ful oause  of  constant  variation  in  price.  This  we 
have  on  more  than  one  occasion  ourselves  pointed 
out,  and  we  have  mentioned  how  confusing,  and 
often  misleading,  the  advioe  given  by  the  Oiroulars 
of  well-known  London  Brokers  has  proved  to  be. 
It  seems  to  be  only  natural  and  proper,  that  with  in- 
ferior grades  of  tea  selling  almost  on  a level  as 
to  prioe  with  those  of  a higher  kind,  our 
planters  should  devote  their  attention  mainly 
to  the  preparation  of  the  first-mentioned 
sorts.  The  last  twelve  months  have  seen 
the  coarser  teas  rise  in  prioe  from  a minimum 
of  fivepenoe  to  a maximum  of  tenpence. 
What  more  natural  then,  than  for  our  planters  to 
assume  that  it  would  pay  them  better  to  pluok 
coarsely  and  obtain  the  benefit  of  prioes  so  satis- 
factory as  those  recorded.  The  result  a year 
ago,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  that  the  home 
market  was  depleted  to  a great  extent  of  the 
finer  sorts  of  tea,  while  the  common  grades 
poured  into  it  with  a profusion  which  threatened 
to  reverse  the  whole  existing  condition  of  the 
trade,  and  prioes  for  the  lower  grades  were  soon 
forced  down,  while  those  for  the  better  kinds 
correspondingly  tended  to  rise.  The  cry  then 
became  one  for  “ fine  teas'"  and  accordingly  very 
stringent  were  the  orders  given  in  many  oases 
for  Ceylon  plantations  to  have  no  “ ooarse”  pluoking 
—"fine”  or  “medium”  to  be  the  rule.  But  what 
is  the  result  ? A soarcity,  we  are  now  told,  of 
oheap  teas  in  the  home  market)  while  Srokeq 
