666 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, 1901. 
beyond the dreams of avarice. This'is a calculation, 
therefore, that I prefer not to make ia these 
columus but I may mention the fact that there 
are mature orange trees in Ceylon which produce 
their crops not by hundreds, but by thousands per 
annum, that the usual number of trees to the acre , a 
from 100 to 150, and that decent oranges cannot be 
had in Colombo under five cents a piece! in niy 
opinion it will be a good many years before the 
local demand for good oranges is s^itisfied. As soon 
as they are available, I predict that they will dis- 
place the present supply of worthless green and sour 
fruit which is a disgrace to the as-e of this colony 
It is a matter for surprise that up to date so little 
has been done to introduce the flrst-olass named 
varieties of the orange which are well known in most 
if not all countries where citrus fruit can be grown. 
Here an orange is simply.an orange and nothing more 
whereas there are about a dozen distinct named 
varieties, each with its own special characteristics 
by means of which identification can be made. 
I would urge the advisability of making experimen- 
tal plantings oi the orange and lemon as far as 
poss ble all over the island, and especially at eleva- 
tions between 2,000 anc -5,000 teeN which so far seem 
to suit best the kinds that have been introduced 
A variety which does well in the low country would 
be a boon to Ceylon, as suitable land in the ^b'^Pe 
of rich flats and easy slopes is more pleu if ul there 
than in the hill district^. Sach a variety will no doubt 
be fixed upon before long, as plantings were made 
last year in different parts of the low country. At 
present all trees have to be imported, but with 
local nurseries and a few natives trwned to graft and 
bud the seedling trees, a supply of plant- could be 
produced at a slight cost as compared with the ex- 
Lnse of importing the trees, and there is a good 
oneuiug for anyone who cares to take this nursery 
business up, although two years' time wou d necessa- 
' rily elapse before any saleable stock would be avail- 
able.— Local " Times." 
On the other hand, the yield in the factory went 
lower than .Java. The amount of raw sugar extracted 
from the sugar cane by weight was as follows : — 
Year Field in per cent 
1896 ,„ ... ... 10 55 
1897 .. ... ... 1006 
1898 ... ... 10 21 
The factories which obtained more than 40,000 kg. 
of sugar per hectare were only 11 in number in 
1896, in 1897 they numbered HO, and 1898 they had 
reached the number of 87. 
Dio Deufrhc Zucherindustrie says in connection 
with this subject: "This enormous superiority of 
the cane-sugar industry over the beet-sugar industry 
would increase still more if the bounty was taken 
off. The only possibility of keeping up the tight 
against so privileged a competitor rests in the value 
added by the bounty to the products of the beet. 
If by the abolition of the bounty the cane-sugar 
and the beet-sugar industries were placed on an 
equal footing from the point of view of realifing on 
their products, the fate of the beet-sugar industry 
would be sealed. And in considering the foregoing 
results, one speedily acquires the conviction that the 
progress of the colonial industry is far from having 
reached its highest point, whereas one hardly per- 
ceives any noteworthy progress to be realised in 
agriculture and manufacturing in Europe." 
The French paper agrees with the idea that the 
develoijment of agriculture and industry in certain 
countries affords grounds of apprehension for the 
beet-sugar industry of Europe, but it differs as to 
the future of the latter. It believes that under the 
stimulus of necessity it will make great progress 
and reduce the cost of production so materially 
that it will have a long series of years of successful 
existence. — Planters Monthli/, 
BlSE OP THE SUGAR INDDSTBY OF 
JAVA. 
Onder this headidg the Journal des Fahrkants de 
Rnrre prints an account of the extraoi;dinary con- 
fli ions of sugar production in Java. According to 
an official report, the production for the last three 
years has been as follows :— 
Factories in 
Production 
in Tons. 
534,390 
586,299 
725,030 
Year Operation 
1896 187 .. 
1897 188 . 
1895 188 ... 
Java therefore, produces as much sugar as France 
with less than one-half the number of factories. _ 
The astonishing part, however, is in the yield 
Obtained per acre. The figures are these ;— 
Cane per hectare 
Year i"^ ^S- 
1896 - ^6,900 
1807 .. 85,400 
1898 ••• - 
The yields of beets in Europe is about 25,000 to 
30 GOT kg. per hectare on an average. 
if the foregoing figures are astonishing, the follow- 
ing aie simply fabulous. They represent the sugar 
per hectaie in Java :— 
Sugar Extracts per 
Votir hectare in kg. 
i«tifi . ... 8,100 
K<"7 ... 8 600 
, "' .. 10,100 
Compare these figures' of 8,000 to 10,000 ki'logram- 
mes per hectare to thyse of Germany, where they 
bDve only 4/Ji;0)vg( 
ADVENTURES WITfl A BISON. 
I had often heird stories of people being charged 
by bison ; but as so many men say it has never 
happened to them, and that really the bison is a 
most harmless creature, I thought the stories were 
" yarns '' ; but now I am wiser. 
About a week ago, C. and I. started forth to try and 
slay ahull, of which there are a goodly number in 
the forests which I have to look after. I had been 
after them a great many times, but had only been 
able to get one, rather a poor one. Well, the first 
day, we came up to a herd, and after a lut of 
crawling (and this is not easy when you have to crawl 
with a double 8-bore, weighing 181bs,) managed to 
see that there was a good .bull in the herd. Here 
let me digress for a minute, to tell you that it is 
easy enough to shoot a bison, but to get a good 
bull out of a herd requires an awful lot of stalking 
as the confounded cows and young bulls always 
promenade about and offer such easy shots, at the 
same time getting right between you and the bull. 
Perhaps, he, being boss of the show, gives them in- 
structions to do it ! Anyhow, it is very annoying of 
them, and in this particular instance they carried 
out my lord's orders to perfection, and C, whose 
shot it was, could not get more than a glimpse of 
him. After about half-an-hour's waiting, during 
which the cows — who saw, or smelt, that something 
was wrong — kept walking about and snorting at ue, 
there was a loud snort and away they went. Well, 
I fear that 1 am not getting on very well with my 
yarn, but I am not used to '' writing to the papers." 
Suffice it to say that two people trudged most of 
that day without food or drink and never saw the 
bison again, But next day made up for the disap- 
pointment of the first. 
We started off at some unearthly hour (about 3 a.m, 
I should think.}, and when we got out to the swamp, 
which ia a favourite feeding-ground both of bison 
and elephants, we came on the tracks of a solitary 
bull. It was my shot this time, and after a very 
ehort track, one of the trusty jungle meu sppotte?} 
