40 THE TROPICAL AGRICtTLTUmST. [July 1, 1901 
Rubber in Cuba.— Writing; in The Indepen- 
dent on " The Future of Cuba," tiie president 
elceb of that reouMie, Senoi'Toinas Estrada Paluia, 
says : " As for ruiiber, t here are some Caoiuchouc 
trees growing in Cuba, chiefly Oil soil that has no 
other use. But in the province of Havana Cubans 
are already establishing nurseries of youiig trees, 
and the people are buyiiis; them exceusively." — 
I'he India Rubber World, May 1. 
Tobacco -Growing Under Tents,— It is stated 
by tlie "Implement Age," of Philaiiclphia that 
growing tobacco under tents is now being carried 
OQ iu Connecticut. Experiments were made in 
1900 and 1901 by the State agticuitural acation 
and by individual grosvers in tiie effort to raise 
wrapper-leaf tobacco of tlie Sumatra type in fields 
completely covered and closed in on all sides with 
thin cheese cloth. The results were so giatifying 
that it seems likely the methods of tobacco culture 
iQ that State will be revolutionised.— G^o?;c, 
May 10. 
Queensland Coffee Seed. — Mr H McLsod Playfair, 
of Mudigere, has received a parcel of coffee seed from 
Cairus, North Queensland, and appears to have 
avoided the risk of introducing leaf-disease. Seeds 
put down in January have yielded exceptionally 
sturdy and healthy plants, and aa the seed ia offered 
for sale a good number of coffee-planters will prob- 
ably desire to make a trial of it. We have writtten 
so often about the desirability of introducing new 
and healthy strains that we have really nothing fresh 
to say on the subject. Our own belief is that, if care 
be exercised in the selection, the introduction of 
such strains provides a check upou disease instead 
of helping to spread it. — Planting Opirdon, May 31. 
Two More Tea Companiks.— The Hunas- 
giriya Company has fallen on evil days and 
unless there is an improvement in prices, 
or a full maintenance of the better rates now 
being realised, it may be necessary to circum- 
cribe the area under tea and concentrate 
attention on the very best fields. In the 
olden days, Hunasgiriya was quite a show- 
place under coffee ; but much was taken 
out of the soil in those years.— The Eastern 
Produce and Estates Company has had a 
striking career since it took over the affairs 
of the old Ceylon Company, Limited, and the 
full report of the annual meeting which we 
publish elsewhere makes interesting reading. 
Commencing with a burden of no less than 
£193.000 in Debentures, by good caieful 
management and the profits from tea in the 
early days, this debt has been reduced to 
£72,500 and the whole capital of the Company 
is now only equal to £30 a cultivated acre, 
without counting valuable property in mills, 
&c. in Colombo. The Directors thoroughly 
believe in fine plucking and are going to 
adhere to it. The Company makes a profit 
— apart from attention to its own estates — 
through its engineering and agency work ; 
and having plantations at all elevations and 
in a great variety of districts, the share- 
holders must be content with a fair average 
price for its tea and not expect the prices 
appertaining to the high estates of a Com- 
pany that has no medium nor low counti-y 
properties. Mr, R. A. Cameron, Mr. Norman 
Grieve and the other Directors may well be 
satisfied with the outcome of their labours, 
following on the good work done by their 
staff in Ceylon. 
The Production of Cacao in Africa. — A West^ In- 
dian merchant writes to The Times to say that in a 
few years' time Africa seems likely to prove a 
formidable rival to South America and the West 
ladies as a producer and exporter of cacao and 
those interested in the West Indian posses- 
sions of the United Kingdom and anxious to se« 
the island more prosperous will do well to watch 
how the cultivation of cacao is being pushed on 
with satisfactory results throughout the continent 
of Africa. Tlds year the German colony of th« 
Oameroons, hopes to ship three thousand bags of 
cacao, to be increased, it is estimated, to ten thousand 
bags in 1906. Our correspondent adds : — ' Mr 
McGlouaie, head of the scientific department of 
British Central Africa, reports the successful ship- 
ments from Kew and receipts at Lomba of 210 
plants which had been planted out and were doing 
well, Lagos is also going in for cacao, and one of 
her planters is now travelling in the West Indies 
to see how the estates are managed in Trinidad and 
Grenada,' He also says that the little Portuguese 
island of St. Thome has greatly increased its ex- 
port of cacao in ten years, the shipments in 1891 
being under four thousand tons, whilst last year 
very nearly sixteen thousand tons of cacao were ex- 
ported, — Agricultuml NeiDS, April 25. 
Metallurgy and Engineering.— The tentli 
"James Forrest" lecture was delivered on Wed- 
nesday»night at a special meeting of the Institu- 
tion of Civil Engineers by Sir William Roberts- 
Austen, whose subject was the ' Relation between 
Metallurgy and Engineering.' As to the use of 
cast iron and malleable iron, he said it .was 
admitted that the necessity for pumping water out 
of mines was the main factor in the evolution of 
the steam engine, and in turn the development of 
British metallurgy of iron and steel dated from 
the time when Watt's steam engine enabled air 
readily to be pumped into the blast furnace 
employed for the production of cast iron. More 
than half of last century had elapsed before the 
age of steel began, and towards ihe end of that 
century great attention was devoted to consider- 
ations connected with the molecular structure and 
properties of steel. When metallurgists gave 
engineers mild steel they provided a cinder-free 
solid solution of iron and carbon. All subsequent 
advance had been due to the recognition of this 
fact, and to the study of the properties of metallic 
solid solutions. Sir John Hawkshaw in his pre 
sideutial address to the Institution delivered in 
I8tj2, said that if the strength of iron could be 
doubted the advantages might be equal to the 
discovery of a new metal more valuable than iron 
had ever been. This was.exactly what metallurgists 
had done with regard to steel by suitable thermal 
treatment and by suitable add itions of comparatively 
rare metals. The lecturer nextexplained the nature 
of solid solutions, and dwelt on the importance 
of allotropic modifications of iron. Some very 
beautiful experiments wereshown^in evidence of the 
possibility of the past molecular history of amass 
of steel being traced by microscopic examination 
of the solid metal, which might even reveal by 
its struclaie the vibrations to which it had been 
subjected. Finally, in regard to the efforts metal- 
lurgists were makine to study the influence of 
rare metiils on iron and other metals, the reducing 
power of aluminium on metallic oxides was ex- 
hibited, very high temperatures of 3,000 deg. C 
and over being produced. A vote of thanks to 
the lecturer was proposed by the president, Mr 
C Hawksley, and seconded by Sir Frederick 
Bratnwell.— London Times, April 25, 
