Dec. 1, 1900.] 
THE TEOPICAL AGfvICULTURIST. 
377 
soils (for neither is it possible to get a sufficiency 
of wood ashes to serve the same purpose) and grow 
leguminous crops, even if it should only be co Aitch ; 
when such crops of peas and beans are so fertilized 
With potash and phjsphates the bulk vegetation and 
the CLOp of seeds are both very large ; enough seeds 
may be saved for future crops, and if chosen, some 
may ba marketed if it is found to pay well enough 
to pick, shell, and cure ; and the decaying leaves, 
stems and roots should then be broken up and 
mixed with the soil with fork or plough. This is 
copying nature's methods of conserving the fertility 
of the soil. The grass sod is constautly withering 
awiy and new grass springs up and the old ; when 
this goes on for many years there is a conlinnous 
addition of decaying veget-itioa forming a deeper 
and deeper layer of loam. In the forest the leaves 
and twigs drop season after season ; then trees get 
old, rot and crumble away, so that there is a con- 
stant addition of decaying vegetation covering the 
soil below where the roots are, and while the rain 
washes the fertilizing gases down, the rootlets strike 
upward eager to seize and absorb them. Bat nature 
works slowly, if surely, while mm is impatient. 
So by planting peas and beans, which grow qnickly 
nnd feed partly on the air, absorbing the atmos- 
pheric nitrogen through their leaves, pumping it 
down into the soil through their roots and deve- 
loping profuse vegetation, the roots at the same 
time searching out and drawing up from the subsoil 
stores of potash which otherwise would have been 
locked up and unavailable to the princinal crops, 
bananas or sugar cane, or whatever the crop may 
be, we can in three or four months, or at any 
rate twice a year, turn as much decaying vegetable 
matter rich in nitrogen and pjtish into the soil 
as nature might not do in m i.ny years in a forest. 
— The Journal of the Jamaica Aqricultural Societij. 
IRRIGATED COFFEE. 
Mr. C. Meenacshayya writes : — Will yoii 
kindly permit ine to .supplement by a few woids 
the letter which you published about irrigated 
coffee. Most planters mi-ht have lieard of the 
enormously large operations carried on by Msssrs. 
Finlay, Mnir and Co. in Trnvancore, in planting 
te.i and coff'^e. One of their Chief Saperinten- 
rients, Mr. William Milne, under telegraphic 
instnictions from Calcutta, pa'd a visit to niy 
plantation here on the 3lst December, 1897, when 
uiy oldest plants were only two years old, plants 
wiiich are now giving me about 7 owts. crop. 
He was highly pleased, and told nie th^t lie was 
going to report very favourably, Umler the im- 
pression that that Coniiiany might go in for 
irrigation cofiee on a large scale in this Province. 
I mentioned the matter to the Dewan, Sir Seshadri 
Iyer, and he was so delighted with the prospect 
of th;)t wealthy Company starting operalions in 
this State, tiiat he asked me to write to Mr. Milne 
giving assurance of every encouragement from 
the Dnrbir. I wrote to hini accordingly, but I 
ascertained that the object of the visit was to 
see how far, it considered desirable, they might 
adapt their coffee-growing to a system of irri^'a- 
tion in Travancore. Mr. Brown, of the Cubbon, 
Bmgxlore, has a small plantation near Kenaeri 
and he pumps up water from a perennial rivulet 
that runs below. I am not in a position to say 
what margin of profit can be attained if a small 
plantation is so expensively irrigateil. There is 
a very large estate near Lavarakeri, aboitt 15 
miles from Bangalore, wlieie arrangements are 
mtide for pumping water, also from a perennial 
stream, to fill up tanks; but I understand that 
the object is to grow mostly paddy and sugar-cane. 
though there is some coffee. A never-failing tank 
such as Berankenave or Marikanave will be the 
cheapes.; source of water-supply. I would recom- 
mend the formation of a Joint Stock Company 
amongst the planters, to raise a plantation on a 
large scale, say 500 or 1,000 acres under one of 
these tanks; tlie Dnriiar might be appealed to 
for granting land under special concessions. That 
acquired, the rest is plain sailing for which a 
small outlay will be adequate. Famine-years, as 
a rule, need not affect irrigated coffee. Famines 
occur, generally, not by a tctal failure of or a 
great deficiency in the rainfall of the year, but 
by unseasonable rain'.;, when the dry crops, which 
are the staple food of the ryots, die out for want 
of seasonable rains; no amount of deluging after- 
waids could resuscitate them. A big deep tank, 
with a large catchment area, when once filled 
(it matters not in what particular month from 
June to January) will serve your plantation 
during the dry mouths. — M, Mail. 
PLANTING NOTES. 
Canadian Fruit Export. — We learn from the 
Canadian horticulturist for October that a cold 
storage car for use on the Grand Trunk Railway, and 
special cjI i storage compartments of the same kind on 
board the steamer), have been prepared in place of 
the unsatisfactory appliances hitherto in use. Man- 
chester will be the port to which the first shipments 
will be made, and should the results prove equal to 
ezpectations, other lines will be fitted up. — Gardeners 
Chronicle 
Servian Plums.— From Belgrade we learn that 
during the present year, dried i?lums to the value of 
6^0(10,000 francs have been exported from Bervia, and 
Plum jam to the value of 2,400,000 francs. In the year 
1890, dried Plama were exDorted to the value of 
7,300,000 franc-, and jam to the extent of 1,300,000 
francs. In addition to all this, 'considerable quantities 
of fresh Plums for use as table fruit, or for the manu- 
facture of spirits, are exported each year. A consider- 
able trade at one time existed with this country in 
dried Plums, but that has been swept away by exports 
from France and California of fruits which have under- 
gone a double drying process. — Gardeners' Chronicle. 
Conifers as Rain Gauges. — According to a recent 
number of the Itevue Uorticole, M. Felix Sahut has 
lately communicated to the Congres dea Societes 
Savantes observations respecting certain plants that 
act as registering rain gauges. " Mention has already 
been made of the infiaence of certain more or less 
severe droughts in the French Mediterranean upon 
Pinus Laiicio of t'orsica, and Cephalonian Fir. The 
lengthening of the branches of these two species is 
always proportionate to the quantity of rain falling 
during those months of the year when it is most pro- 
fitable to thern. Co-etticients have been established 
indicating what the degree is for each month of the 
year. These co-efficients enable the relationship that 
exists betvi'een the amount of rain fallen, and the 
greater or less intensity of the vegetation which it has 
encouraged to be determined. It is shown that, under 
these conditions, it is possible to judge approximately 
the quantity of rain which has fallen by measuring 
exactly the length of the leader, or of the branch pro- 
duced yearly on these species of Pine, and f the 
estimate is not absolutely proportionate to the quan- 
tity of rain registered by the rain-gauge, it closely 
approaches to it ; and a still closer estimation may be 
made by taking into account the relative value of the 
results produced by rain in the several months of the 
year. It is, therefore, possible, to a certain extent, to 
use plants specially selected for this purpose as aotaal 
registering rain-gauges," — Bevue Horticole. 
