530 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
{Vet}. 1. 1901. 
bib of shikarring on his own account, lie wouUl, 
at a moderate computation, have had to contend 
against 90,000, OUO of these pests next year, with 
the result that his tea bushes would have been 
wiped out, and would have gone to manure the 
land on which they stood. The caterpillar is 
a peculiarly destructive one, and cunning, for it 
builds itself a round cocoon of the size and 
shape of an ordinary marble, and buries it in the 
soil, where it remains, and comes out in due 
course as a moth, which in its turn lays its eggs, 
which hatch out into the lii.tle caterpillars. Dr. 
Watt has brought away a number of these marble 
coeoons,' snd is cultivating them in the soil in 
which, he found them, and will thus be able to 
study their life-history. Dr. Watt also found 
the jutle brown bug, that devastated the Ceylon 
coft'ee bushes, on a jungle creeper. The bug has 
commenced to attack the tea bush, and we have 
now to learn what it will do if allowed to in- 
creased and multiply. It is as destructive to 
tea as it proved itself to coffee. Truly, the tea 
bush is proving itself a veritable host to all 
sorts and conditions of insect and fungoid pe^ls ; 
yet it flourishes and " over-produc;ion " is the 
watch-word of tea men just at present. There 
is yet another interesting <liscovery made by Dr. 
Watt. He has found that several of the scale 
insects are attacked by certain fungi, and killed. 
He thinks that in such ca?es the fungi should 
be employed to inoculate the scale insects, and 
thus destroy them. He is jtherefore making 
cultures of these fungi, and we may expect same 
nterSsting results from his investigations. — 
Indian Gavdening and Planting, Dec. 20. 
RUBBER AND ITS PRODUCERS. 
We direct attention to another interesting 
letter from Mr. Godefroy-Lebeuf of Paris, on 
this subject. Our correspondent writes won- 
derfully goodEnglish, — we only wish we could 
write French as well— and if he would only- 
make all botanical and unusual terms very- 
clear, the printers would rejoice in his letters. 
The bark we sent him from a planter, we 
understood to be from young "Para" 
trees?— but we may learn more about this. 
Meantime, there is a good deal of interesting 
information in the letter before us ; and in 
regard to the "Sapium" we quote as follows 
from the "Treasury of Botany " : — 
Sapium. — A genus containing about a score of trees 
or "shrubs of the order Euphorbiacese, found in the 
tropics of both hemispheres, and all of them yielding 
a milky juice, which in some is very acrid and even 
poiaoijous. The leaves resemble those of the willow, 
the poplar, or the laurel, and at their point of union 
witb the stalk are furnished with two round glands ; 
while the small greenish flowers are disposed in ter- 
minal spikes, the lower portion bearing the fertile, 
the upper the sterile flowers. 
S. indicum, a widely distributed eastern species, is 
known under the name of Boroo, where, according to 
Mr. Motley, the leaves are largely used for dyeing and 
staining rotang of a dark colour. The acrid milky 
juice produces a burning sensation like that from a 
capsicum. The young fruit is acid and eaten as a 
condiment, while at the same time the fruit is one of 
the ingredients used for poisoning alligators. The 
ripe fruits are woody trilobed capsules, about an inch 
across, with three cells, and one oilj seed in each. 
The Milkwood of Jamaica, S. lanrifolinm, receives 
its name from the milky juice which abounds in the 
stem, and is a source of annoyance to sawyera and 
others when the wood is green. S. ealicifolium afford* 
in Paraguay a bark which is used instead of that of 
oak for tatming. Most modern aothors unite thia 
genus with Stillingia, from which there are no reliable 
characters to distinguish it. 
If anything is to be done with " Chone- 
morpha'' for rubber purposes, we may be 
sure the Director of our Botanic Gardens 
will see to it 
CHONEMORrHA — A geuns of Apocynaceae, closely 
allied to Echites, and differing from it principally in 
the funnel shaped corolla. The species are, moreover, 
Indian not American. The root and leaves of 0. 
malabarica, a plant of Malabar, are used medicinally 
by the natives 
FIBRE EXTRACTION. 
Bahamas — The factory for extracting and preparing 
the fibre of the pita plant or agave sisalsna contains 
machinery driven by an oil or gas engine and the 
press for baling. The machine is placed at one 
of the extremities of the building with free commu- 
nication to the outside, where there is a mound or 
raised stand ftom which the operator feeds the 
machine, a continuous thin stream of wiiter being 
conducted to and flowing into the machine, so that 
the fibre is washed clean during the process of 
ext'-action. The leaves are carried by strong "grip" 
chains to large scutching wheels, which have brass 
knives passing across the periphery, and these knives 
scrape the vegetable matter from the fibre against 
brass or wood carves. At the other end of the 
machine, and inside the factory an operator is seated 
to receive the fibre as it emerges white and clean 
and from thence it is carried by other working 
hands to the outside, and is there hung out to dry 
in the sun across posts and rails erected for the 
Eurpose. When thoroughly dried, the fibre is bronght 
ack to the factory and packed in bales by means of a 
press exactly similar to a wool press, care being taken 
to turn in the ends of the fibre so as to give a smooth 
exterior surface to the bale when it is turned out o£ 
the press. Uniformity in weight is not attempted, 
they vary from 350 lb. to 500 lb. The maximam 
capacity of the best machine is about one ton of fibre 
per day. The following is a list of the machines 
which are or have been in general use : — Prieto. —A ma- 
chine made ia Barcelona and in use in Yucatan. Todd. 
— An American patent. Several of these machines aro 
in use in the Bahamas; it may be consider fairly 
satisfactory, but not so good as the "Villamor, of 
which patent there is one in use in the Island of New 
Providence. Villamor. —A better machine than the 
Todd in the amount of work done, and is not so 
liable to break down. It is an American machine, 
but is not being made at present. It has hitherto 
been used a great deal in Yucatan. Torvella. — A 
machine made by the same American firm that 
brought out the Villamor. The Torvella is now 
replacing the Villamor in Yucatan, and is very 
highly esteemed there; Stephens or Tkehand, — This 
is a large and expensive American machine. It is 
reported that a new machine is coming ont on t 
new principle and probably cheaper. — Colonial Oji ce 
BepoH from the Bahamas. 
Tobacco Cultivation in Jaffna.— In some 
places the planting of the fragrant weed has coitl- 
menced, while in others the preparing of the soil 
and manuring it are going on preparatory to 
planting. All kinds of manures have gone up con? 
siderably in value. The area which will be under 
tobacco cultivation this time will be much larger 
than it was in previous yea,TS,— Hindu Organ, 
Dec. 19. 
