514 
THE TEOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[Fkb. 1, 1001. 
warm countries. And notwithstanding one finds 
ourseli in the midst of a tropical island lying seven 
degrees from the equator. 
At Bandarawela we spent the night at a small but 
well-arranged hotel. It is thought of making of the 
place a kind of sanatorium later on, just on account 
of the drynesss of the climate. If the place is to 
become really habitable then ihe great difficulty of 
the production of shade will /irst have to bs over- 
come. As it is now we e3iperienced it the follow- 
ing morning during a little botanizing expedition on 
the patana — although one is at a height of 
about 4,400 feet, after eight o'clock in the morning 
it is so scorching hot, that one hastens to flee in- 
doors, where the cold, in contrast with the terrible 
heat outside, does not feel pleasant, as being too 
great a contrast. 
By a difficult but excellently-made mountai« 
road a mail coach brought us, over a distance of 
18 miles, from Bandarawela to BaduUa, the identical 
first object of our expedition. 
The garden at BaduUa, or rather the gardenette, 
since the surface comprises not more than 11 acres, 
was founded in 188f) by the former Director, Trimen, 
with the object of there trying the culitivation of 
various useful plants, in order to find out which 
of those plants were adopted for the particular clima- 
tological condition of the province of Uva, of which 
Badulla is the capital. 
( To be concluded, ) 
^ 
SUGAR ITEMS. 
Daring the past seven years Qiisensland has sold 
sugar to the value of ±'6,500,000. Last year £1,163,010 
was paid into the colony for this single article of 
produce. The loss to the working classes by the 
destruction of this industry would amount to the 
wages at the fifty-eight mills and tea juice extracts 
plants alou?, of nearly 4,000 white men. There are 
in addition some .3,000 farmers, who grow cane for 
the mills. Probably 8,000 Europeans are employed 
outside the factories pretty well all the year round, 
besides some 10,000 indirectly engaged in the in- 
dustry. Thus they are actually some 25,000 white 
men employed to 9,000 kanakas, the labour of one 
of the latter enabling employers to employ nearly 
thrse whites. The 'J,O0u kanakas are employed in 
the field, but it is with great difficulty that the 
number can be kept up to the figure. 
In 1899 Queensland exported 109,045 tons of sugar 
to Europe, the Australasian colonies, China, and 
Japan, &c. Does it ever strike any of those who 
cry aloud again black labour to trv^ and calculate 
how many white men earn bread for their wives 
and families by means of this annual output of 
sugar? Do they ever consider the operatives in 
British factories who make the linen for the bags, 
the twine and the needles, the men who navigate 
the ships which carry it, the engineers who make 
the machinery — worth in Queensland probably some 
three millions ? Again do they consider the numbers 
of horses and teamsters employed in the industry 
both on plantations and in the cities ? Wharf la- 
bourers have to handle very once of sugar. How 
many comfortable homes are the direct result of 
the sugar industry ? For every coloured labourer 
sweating in the oanefields there are a dozen white 
men and women earning good wages, which they 
would not be able to earn where it not that there 
employers enaled to pay them those wages through 
the moans of these reliable, yet not too cheap, 
coloured w orkers. Every ton of sugar produced la 
the colony is worth from i'4 lOs. to .£6 to the cane- 
producers, mostly hard-working men who, by sugar- 
growing alone, provide comfortable homes for their 
wives and families, and indirectly tor thousands of 
wharf labourers, teamsters, and draymen's families. 
Such an industry is well worth fostering, not by 
jjopuses, but by aaaistance to introduce superior 
methods of cultivation by which heavier crops and 
a higher sugar content may be obtained. During the 
present season a Fine engaged in sugar-growing 
took 70 tons of cane off 1 acre of his laud, where 
others were only getting from 17 to 20 tons. It 
may bo presumed that the laud was rich, new, scrub 
land ; but is it not within the power of science to 
put even worn-out land into the same condition 
by means at once cheap and effective ? This is 
what it is hoped that Dr. Maxwell will bring to 
pass. He will be here by the time this Journal 
goes to press, and he arrives at the right time to 
at once put existing and intending planters on the 
right atrack. Should his work have the result of 
increasing the sugar output by 9 tons of cane or 
1 ton of sugar, the black labour question would 
cease from troubling. It would gradually die out, 
especially if it should come to pass that the work 
of " trashing " is found to be superfluous, and au 
effective cane-cutting machine be invented. We have 
seen in the introduction of a very useful cane-planting 
machine, and there is little doubt that eie long some 
inventive genius will discover a means of mechanically 
cutting and tropping cane plants in whatever con- 
dition the crop may be, whether uneven in height 
blown over by the wind. When that comes to pass 
the need for the kanaka will pass away, and the 
Northern canefields will no longer be the terror 
of the white man. — Queendand Apricultuml Journal. 
♦ 
HOW MUCH SEED TO USE 
Last month we gave the quantities of seed o 
various crops required per acre broadcast or in drills. 
To this list we may add the" quantities required per 
acre in hills : — 
Maize, 8 to 10 quarts ; cucumbers, 2 to 3 lb , climb- 
ing beans, 8 to 10 quarts: rock-melons, 2 to 3 lb.; 
squash 2 to 3 1b. pumpkins, 2 to 3 lb.; water-melons, 
4 to 5 lb. 
The quantity of seed required to furnish a certain 
number of plants, approximately, and allowing for 
seeds which do not germinate, is — Asparagus, 1 oz. 
to 500 plants ; cabbage, 1 oz. to 1,500 plauts ; cauli- 
flower, 1 oz. to 1,000 plauts . celery, 1 oz. to 2,000 
plants ; egg-plant, 1 oz. to l.'OOO plants ; endive, 1 oz. 
to 3,000 plauts ; leek, 1 oz. to 1,500 plants ; lettuce, 
1 oz. to 3:000 plants : pepper, 1 oz. to 1,000 plants; 
tomato, 1 oz. to 1,500 plants. 
Quantity of seed required for a given number of 
hills — Maize, 1 quart to 200 hills; cucumber, 1 oz. 
to 125 hills ; musk-melon, 1 oz. to 60 hills ; climbing 
beans, Lima, beans, 1 quart to 100 hills ; climbing 
beans, wax, 1 quart to 150 hills ; pumpkin, 1 oz to 50 
hills ; squash. 1 oz. to 50 hills ; water-melons, 1 oz. to 
30 hills. 
Quantity of seed required for a given length of drill 
— Asparagus,! oz. to 60 feet of drill : beets. 1 oz. to 
50 feet of drill ; beans, dwarf, 1 quart to 100 feet of 
drill; carrot, 1 oz. to 100 feet of drill; endive, 1 oz, 
to 100 feet of drill; okra, 2 oz. to 40 feet of drill; 
onion, 1 oz. to 100 feet of drill; onion sets, 1 quart 
to 60 feet of drill ; parsley, 1 oz. to 125 feet of drill : 
parsnips, 1 oz. to 200 feet of drill ; peas, 1 quart to 75 
feet of drill ; radish, 1 oz. to 100 feet of drill ; salisify 
1 oz. to 70 feet of drill, spinach, 1 uz to 100 feet of 
drill ; turnips, 1 oz. to 150 feet of drill. — Queensland 
Agricultural Journal, 
Polishing Rick. — There is a great deal in the style 
in which any product of the soil or manufactured 
article of food is got up for market. Coffee, rice, 
arrowroot, honey, ginger, preserves, and many other 
articles produced and manufactured in Queensland, 
have often suffered in competitive markets in con- 
sequence of being either carelessly prepared or 
badly packed, or put up in unsightly vessels and 
packets. The Grocer, an authority on such matters, 
says that fashion demands a bright lustre in rice, 
and this is secured by rubbing off a dull outer coatine; 
o£ the grain, which has been shown to have a foo4 
