346 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Nov. 1, 1900. 
to he R12o,000, consisting of 205 preference sliares 
of moo each carrying cumnlative dividend of 8 
per cent, 225 ordinary sliares of RlOO and 595 
shares of KlOO to be issued whenever found 
necessary. The profits, after paying cumulative 
dividend of 8 per cent for preference shares and 8 
per cent dividend for ordinary shares, are to be 
divided as foDows ; two thirds to go to the share- 
holders, and one third to go to Mr. E Elliott, so 
long as lie manages the business of the Com- 
pany. The following have signed the articles of 
Association purchasing one share each : -Messrs. 
H Creasy, G H Alston, G W Carlyon, A Thomson, 
W H Figg, R E !Shaw and Whittall and Co. 
CHAULMOOGRA OIL AND ITS VIRTUES. 
We have to acknowledge the receipt of 
an interesting and valuable monograph on 
Chaulmoogra Oil by Dr. C Desprez of Paris.* 
The value of this oil, in the treatment of 
various skin diseases, but especially of 
Leprosy known to India and China for cen- 
turies, has been sufficiently recognised by its 
inclusion among the standard drugs of the 
Indian Pharmaoopaeia since 1868 and of the 
British Pharmacopaeia since 1884. But what 
is not so well known is that the pure oil, from 
which alone the best therapeutic effects are 
obtainable, is hardly to be procured, unless 
it is specially extracted from the genuine 
seeds, which are themselves not easily dis- 
tinguishable from allied species. It is in the 
original researches made in . this direction, 
(for which he has been highly complimen- 
ted by Dr. Prain, the Superintendent of 
Botanic Gardens, Calcutta) more perhaps 
even than in the valuable compilation of 
clinical cases from various sources illustrat- 
ing the value of the oil in Leprosy, Syphilis, 
Tuberculosis, etc. that Dr. Desprez's pamphlet 
will be appreciated by medical men in the 
East. It is possible that a full translation 
of the monograph may be read before the 
local Medical Association shortly, and we 
may hope that some information will be given 
as to the cultivation of the plant yielding 
the genuine seeds. 
■ «> 
RUBBER IN EQUATORIAL AMERICA. 
M. Henri Juccielle, professor of the Faculty of 
Sciences at Marseilles, communicates to tlie 
Evene des Cultures Coloniales a letter received 
from M. E. Ch. Van Isschot, an Engineer of 
Guyaquil, in which it is stated that the produc- 
tion of rubber in that country is diminishing 
daily. The forests situated near .the coast do 
not contain any more rubber trees and it is 
found necessary to search up to the forests at 
the foot of the Cordilleras in order to find 
specimens of Oastilloa, the destruction of which 
follows immediately on discovery. Rubber mer- 
chants have now commenced to searcli on tlie 
other side of the Cordilleras, but as it is neces- 
sary to descend again 1,000 metres (3,000 feet) 
into a country without roads or resources of 
any kind the exploitation is very different. All 
carriage is by porters.- Indian Gardening and 
Flanting, October 11th. 
♦ de Chaulmoogra— Etudes Botanique, Chimi- 
que, Fharmaceutiquc et Therapeutique par 
Georges Desprez, Doctour cn-Piiaiikuacie, Paris, 
J. B, Bailliere et Fils, 1900, 
IMPROVEMENT OF COFFEE CULTURE 
IN S. INDIA. 
" Fred. D M." writes :— At the meeting of th® 
U.P.A.. S.I. held at Bangalore in August last, Mr' 
Gompertz, Chaiiman of the Shevaroy Planters' Asso 
ciation, suggested the introduction of the Brazi)ian 
system of coifee cultivation, which he stated is to 
give the tree more space for growth than it is 
allowed in Southern India. In the Brazils the space 
allowed is 12 feet between the trees, and in some 
instances he said even that space is exceeded, the 
result being better growth and development of the 
trees, and an average crop of 5 lb, of coffee per tree , 
and he estima tes that the number of trees to the acre 
planted at 12 feet apart would be 300, whereas plant- 
ing trees at 6 feet apart, as is now done in Southern 
India, the number per acre is 1,210. This large diff- 
erence shows at once the great saving there would be 
in the cost of planting an acre of land by the Bra- 
zilian system — a saving probably of three-fourths or , 
two-thirds of the present cost of cultivation — which 
would amount to something considerable in planting 
100 acres of land. The pronuce of 300 trees, according 
to Mr. Gompertz's estimate of 5 lb. per tree, would 
average 12 cwts. 36 lb. per acre, which is about 
double the average crop produced at present from an 
acre of 1,200 coflee bushes. He made mention of an 
interesting experiment that is now being carried on 
on the Shevaroys by Mr. Leeming, a member of the 
Association, to practically test the value of the 
Brazilian system— for which purpose he had removed 
from one of his estates every other coffee bush from 
a lime originally planted 6 feet apart, and by that 
means increased the space between the bushes left 
in the line to 12 feet from bush to bush. The trees 
or bushes in the line so treated, Mr. Gompertz told 
the Meeting, have made luxuriant growth and are at 
present bearing a heavy crop — what it would average 
per tree it was not possible to say then, but he 
expected that in time it would break the Brazilian 
record of 5 lb. per tree. 
I fully agree with the theory propounded by Mr. 
Gompertz, but I differ with him on one point, and 
that is my doubt of the dwarfed coffee bashes of the 
South Indian estates being capable, notwithstanding 
the advantages of the improved system of cultivation 
suggested, of producing the estimated average crop 
of 5 lb. per tree, in these days of leaf disease and 
repeated unfavourable seasons caused by drought ; 
and it is upon the realisation of the estimated Bra- 
zilian crop of 6 lb. per tree that the advantage of the 
proposed change in cultivation hinges. From Mr. 
Gompertz's silence on the height of Brazilian coffee 
trees that bears 5 lb. per tree, I am led to believe 
that although in his remarks he mentioned tree, he 
means the ordinary ii feet bush grown on South Indian 
coffee estates. My impression is that the stunted 
coffee bush may, under favourable circumstances and 
improved cultivation, bear an average crop of about 
2i lb. per bush. It is unfortunate that Mr. Gompertz 
d'd not, when remarking upon the Brazilian system 
of cultivating coffee, make some allusion to the 
height the tree tree is allowed to grow thsre, as the 
quan'ity of crop a coffee tree is capable of bearing 
depends as much upon its height aa upon the space 
allowed it for development. 
There is a German method of lining for tree plant- 
ing by which .oOO trees to the acre could be planted 
at exactly 12 feet apart. By the ordinary method of 
lining Mr. Gompertz gets only 300 trees to tlie acre ^ 
consequently, many a square yard of land that goes 
to make up the acre is wasted, not only by the 
coffee but also by the tea-planter. But by the German 
method of lining every square yard of land of the 
4,840 ihat go to make the acre is utilised, and, aa 
stated above, after allowing 12 feet of space between 
the trees, 500 acres instead of 300 could bs planted QD 
an acre of lan^, — llaih-asf Mail, Oct, 16, 
