Jan. 1, 1901.1 
THE TROPICAL AGRinULTURIST, 
clone with the oscillatory sieves of Jackson or 
Walker, the coarse leaf is cut with various sorts 
of " cutters," mostly " Parnalls " and •' Jackson's." 
The usual iiiechaiiical packinir is lione to a sm ill 
extent in chests maileby the natives, for the must 
part in clrests half an En^. inch thick of so- 
called inoninii [.sic] wood, imported from Japan, 
sawn to scale and provided with dovetails. Chests 
are also imported from Canada finch thick and con- 
sistinj:^ of three layers of wood glued tocretlier, that 
apparently is cut mechanically and not sawn. They 
are provided with tin corners, clamps for ihe lids, 
etc, and cost in Colombo Rl"30 net. Compressed 
steal cheats seem to be very little us^ed now. 
Prospectsof Tea Cultivation. —I believe that 
ill Ceylon pretty well all suitable ground is planted 
with tea ; it is true that some gardens have hardly 
come into bearing, but on the other hand many old 
gardens are retrograding in quantity as well as in 
quality of crop, so that one would judtre that the 
top point of production has been reached, unless 
it should appear that manuring on a large scale 
gives the results that many expect from it. The 
produce will certainly not, however, be cheaper 
thereby ; and when one sees how readily consump- 
tion takes up the large quantities of Indian tea, 
one is convinced that theie will still remain a place 
also for the product of Java, Whether planting is 
being greatly extended in Assam and India 1 
could not learn. I was told, that only young 
men are being engaged as superintendents, who 
have studied some years as engineers, a hint for 
our young men, that it may come to that in .Java, 
Cacao is still pretty Largely planted in Ceylon. 
I visited an estate near Matale, the centre of the 
cacao industry, and saw also here and there smaller 
plantations. A red variety is mostly planted, 
which greatly resembles the Java sort, only (he 
fruit is somewhat darker violet-red and the streaks 
more greenish ; experiments are also being made 
with other hardier varieties. All the diseases that 
we have on the cacao in Java I found also here, 
such as stem-borers, large borers in the fruits, and 
also steni-canker, which does much harm and 
which is attempted to be cured by cutting out 
the bark and by coppicing. What I did not find 
was the dreaded disease in the fruits, which 
threatens to annihilate cacao cultivation in Java. I 
saw cacao being diied in sheds, the drying floor 
of which was made of laths, covered with cheap 
coconut fibre stufl, which seems to answer well. 
Various Bye-products — Here an ! there one 
sees pepper, indiarubber, etc., planted, but they 
seem more to be experiments. Kapok* is every- 
where grown by natives, hut experiments to plant 
kapok on a large scaleido notseem to exist. The pro- 
duct is bought and exp )rted by European mercan- 
tile houses, but the qualifty appears to he inferior. 
Coconut Indu.STIIY. — It" appears that this in- 
dustry in Ceylon is on low lands a counteri)art of 
the tea industry on the high lands, but it is ex- 
tremely difticuit to obtain any information re- 
garding it. The nuts mostly grown appear to be 
the same varieties as in Java, viz. klappa-idjoef 
and merah\ ; other kinds are also found. From 
of old oil has been expressed by the natives from 
the coconuts in mills driven by sappies, of the 
same system as the A;acZycm(7§-oil mills in the Solo 
* Silk-cotton. 
t Jav. kalajm ijau, green coconut. 
I Mai. onerah, red. 
^ Cojanm indicus'! (Lochang is the Jav. name 
for pulses in general.) 
district, only larger and heavier, Later on hy- 
draulic presses and crushing mills were erected 
by Europeans and wealthy natives, and c-pra 
exported which is generally packed in .square 
bales. 
Desiccated Coconut,— An entirely new in- 
dustry has sprung up in the last few years in the 
manufacture of dried coconut preparations, wiiich 
seem to be chiefly used by confectioners. I just 
managed after much fruitlessefl'oi ttogain admission 
to one of these factories. Tiie course of manu- 
facture is as follows : — The nuts come to the 
factory deprived of tlieir husk, are cut in quarters 
by a circular saw, the flesh of the fruit is ex- 
tra.cted with a chisel, then deprived of the brown 
sk'n by a kind of plane and further cleansed with 
a file, and the pieces wa'^hcd first with warm and 
then with cold water. The cleaned nuts are then 
either cut in slices in mnchines constructed for 
that purpose, or rasped in another kind of machine. 
In the first case one obtains slices, in ^he second 
case coarse flour ; both are dried in a dryin"- 
machine just as tea is ; the flour is so sifted that 
three kinds are obtained and packed in tea chests 
with tea lead. In the factory that I saw this was 
done by means of a tea packing machine with a 
screw-press on it. 
Coir. — Another important industry is the manu- 
facture of mats, bags, etc. of coconiit libre (coir), 
but I w,as not able to obtain permission to see it '• 
only I heard, that the flbre and the raw yarn are 
prepared as a domestic industry by natives in the 
district between Colombo and Point de Galle and 
sold to the factories, which work it further with 
hand-looms. 
Aloe Fibre.— I was present at an experiment 
with a machine for the cleaning of aloe (agave) 
and other hbres. The machine worked in 
the same way as the Faure machines, only 
the leaf was mechanically put into and out 
of the machine. It appears that this industry 
is there still in the region of experiments, just 
as with us. In conclusion a word of thank.s to 
the gentlemen who afforded me the opportunity 
of seeing so many interesting things in so short 
a time. 
Cotton Planting.— With a Cotton famine 
and its tremendous consequences to British trade 
and manufactures almost in sight, it is amazino' 
liow little is done to attempt to supplement sup*^ 
plies. With the exercise of a little energy and 
expenditure of some capital there is no ""reason 
why Manchester should not emancipate itself 
entirely from its present state of dependence 6n 
United States' supplies, liable to be cut off at 
any moment. Cotton could be grown in the norlli 
of Brazil to clothe the whole world and, if under- 
taken on a large and comprehensive scale, 
probably at a much cheaper rate. Labour is 
certainly far cheaper here than in the States, 
whilst the advantage of a depreciated currency 
in such a competition is likewise not to be des- 
pised.' The cotton growing States are moreover 
the most densely populated of the country, Ala- 
goas coming second in this respect only to the 
Capital itself. A powerful association for the 
plantation of cotton in the Northern States could 
not fail to be as profitable to pUnters as advan- 
tateous to home manufacturers if properly under- 
taken, and deserves to be seriously considered. — 
Brazilian Ecview, Oct, 23. 
