May 1, 1901.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
779 
TWENTY THOUSAND ACRES OF FOREST LAND 
AVAILABLE FOR COFFSE 
plantina; belonging to the Dumont company, but 
the five millions of colfee trees now under 
"cultivation" will take tlieni all their time to 
manage with labour daily gettingscarcer and dearer 
Theie are some ",si?ia)'i" Directors in tlie company, 
particularly the one who visited Brazil and reports 
occasionally on Dumont. He ought to go there 
again and try and give the anxious shareholders 
a dividend; they have waited very patiently for the 
past five years and ought to get a fat one this 
year. I should take a small gang of practical 
colfee planters from Ceylon with good dige^nons 
and not afraid of ghiggars, licks and Berne 
flie^ — to say nothing af the dekr little mos- 
quito (the writer had extracted during four years 
in Brazil no less than 200 ghiggars from under- 
neath every toe-nail, of both feet.) The Portuguese. 
Brazilians, Italians and Spaniards called it a 
recreation on Sunday to dig them out of each 
other's feet. 01 all the vile insects on earth, the 
Berne-fiy is the worst. She 
LAYS HER EGGS INSIDE YOUR FLESH 
and hatches three very ugly insects an incli long 
with three rings of bristles round the body and 
sharp nippers. They take abont six weeks to 
develop under your skin, then commence to turn 
somersaults just when you want to go to sleep 
after a hard day's work in the sun. 
The natives of Brazil adopt a novel way of ex- 
tracting tlie brute when full grown; they tie on 
a piece of raw pork and the Berne comes out of 
your skin and takes a header into the piece of 
pig skin. 
Eighteen took up their lodgings in the plump- 
est parts and it was very interesting to stick 
a little nicotine from an old jiipe into their nest, 
then «ut they would jump ; but some were so 
fat they had to be screwed out and great was 
the relief. 
Ticks were very plentiful in the grazing grounds 
and we often got covered with them when out at 
night, fighting with the bush hies on our boundaries 
and trying to save our fences and gates from 
destruction. 
I had a 
VARIED EXPERIENCE WITH SPECIMENS OF BRAZIL- 
IAN ENTOMOLOGY 
and I have brought back as a trophy the nine 
rattles of a large rattlesnake I killed in my colfee. 
His chum came to look for him next day and 
was duly killed— snakes are very numerous and 
the ones . most frequently found in the coffee 
were the rattlesnake and the black and red- 
coral snake. 
"There are snakes in the grass" in human form 
of every nationality and an Englishman little knows 
what is in store of him in that nigger country. 
The more polite the people are, the greater 
the injury they are likely to inflict. There is 
much to write about Brazil after four years in 
the coflee districts of Sao Paulo. My first Estate 
was called " Vista Alegre" (cheerful view.) Mr W 
the proprietor took me round to see some of the 
large Coffee b'azetidas. This district between San 
Carlos de Pinhal and Colonia was much cooler 
than the district of Keberu eu Prato (Black 
Kiver) where the Dumont Estate is located. 
After this I will send you a few more notes on 
Brazilian life and customs and tell your readers 
something about the cities and the Government 
Railways. -Yours faithfully, HENKY COTTAM. 
THE PROPOSED NYASSALAND 
RAILWAY^. 
(From (I correspondent.) 
A petition has been recently presented to His 
Majesty's Consul-General by residents and Civil 
Servants at Biantyrefor transmission to the Home 
Government, asking for a guarantee for the pro- 
posed railway between Cliiromo and BUntyre. 
It appears that the present system of lat\d trans- 
port by porterage of natives has become inade- 
quate to the needs of the country, and is tend- 
ing to the rapid depletion of the labour market 
— an evil which, apart from its injurious effects 
on coffee-growing, tiie staple industry of the 
country, has so seriously impaired the import 
trade that at times many thousaml loads may 
be seen lying for months on the wharves between 
Katungas and Chinee blucked in transitu through 
lack of labour. 
To the more far-siglited traders these delays 
present a graver aspect than that of individual 
loss or inconvenience, for they leave the little Pro- 
tectorate exposed as a trade route to the rivalry 
of Portuguese and German enterprise. On the 
borderland the Portirguese administration is in 
full activity, and the natives from the Protector- 
ate are crossing over, despite the hut tax, to sup- 
port in alien f^rritory those industries which are 
the mainstay of the Protectorate. The stream of 
labour is thus diverted, and the production of coffee, 
tea, tobacco, and Hbre in British Central Africa 
is threatened with extinction. 
It is calculateil that the construction of the 
lailway would place at the disposal of this indus- 
trial community more than 40,000 labourers an- 
nually, and would set tne plaiiting industries on 
an assured economic basis. 
The estimated co^t of the proposed line which 
is to connect the Upper and Lower Shirwa — thus 
opening a thoroughfari^ for l,20il miles into the 
heart of the Lake districts — is £300,000, and the 
petitioners seek a guarantee fiom the British Gov- 
ernment of 2-^ per cent on this amonnt. 
Founding their calculations on the imports and 
exports for 1S99-1900. they count upon a return 
of 7 per cent, on the capital invested, and main- 
tain that, unless exceptionally bad seasons are 
met with, no call is likely to be made upon their 
guarantors. 
The civil servants in the Protectorate have left 
nothing undone to make straight the way for the 
construction of the line. To prevent the trans- 
port and industrial systems of the Protectorate 
from being disorganised by the removal of a large 
quantity of labour from the already insufficient 
market, the Chief Judicial Officer has made a 
provisional contract with the Companhia da Zam- 
besia which will provide from outside the Pro- 
tectorate a supply of labour at a moderate price 
for building the railway, and negotiations have 
been entered into tor the purchase of the material 
of the old Beira Railway. 
The project possesses no inconsiderable political 
importance, as it would, if successfully carried out, 
effectively secure the British hold upon the Lake 
country of Africa. — London Times, Feb. 28. 
CITRUS TREES. 
We like to gather the experiences of fruit-growera 
of other lands, especially those that are now com- 
petitors with us. A suooessful orange-grower in 
Florida writes of his experience there as follows ; — ■ 
" la planting a tre@ I would cut the taproot of j 
