170 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[Sept. T, 1902. 
ford, some of them 17 to 18 years old and 
great giants. Auracarias here and there di- 
versify the outlook. One of the most strikingly 
handsome trees, scattered over the plantation, 
is the Himalayan Birch-tree (Betula Acumi- 
nata)* which, though not tested yet, must 
offer a very substantial timber, perhaps too 
hard to work by the carpenter (in a land where 
bobbins are not in request)— but at any rate in- 
valuable for rough building work on an estate 
and for firewood if the necessity should arise,* 
EUCALYPTS. 
Along the roadside, too, there are some 
magnificent trees of Eucalyptus pauciflora ; 
while there is one specimen of the attractive 
B. licifolia (rare in Ceylon) with its peculiar 
scarlet blossom ; while higher up we noted 
grand specimens olE. Calophylla. Very stri- 
king also is the gianc Bucalypt— £ Amygdalina 
or white gum— to which species in Australia 
belong the highest trees in the world. Here 
they gl'Ow to, perhaps, 100 feet; and the con- 
trast is interesting between the red(£' -Bos^m^a), 
and the other two gums growing alongside : — 
THE RKD, WHITE AND BLUS ! 
Of blue gum '{globulus) not many trees 
remain ; for the reason that they have 
chiefly supplied firewood for the Factory 
tea driers (pov/er is got from the river 
fortunately) during the past ten years, so 
that there has been no trenching on 
the forest reserve. f A c urious discovery 
* We only ideacitied the tree on our return to 
Colombo and from what is said by Dr. Watt in his 
"Economic Products," it will be seen that we are 
a little wide of the mark as to the value of the 
cimber : — 
"Betula acuminata, Wall; Brandis, For. Fl,, 458; 
Gamble. Man. Timb.. 372. Habitat. — A large tree, 
met with in the Himalaya, from 6,000 to 8,000 feet, 
in the Khasia Hills, the mountains of Manipur and 
the !Naga Hills to Martaban. 
" Properties and Uses : — Fibre. — The bark when ma- 
ture peels ofE in larger slabs than in any of the other 
species, and is therefore not so serviceable for the 
purposes to which the others are put. 
" Food. — On the mountain tracts of North-Bast 
Manipur, bordering on the Naga Hills, the Lahupas 
cut off the bark in large slabs just before the leaves 
appear. The inner layer of these slabs is carefully 
separated from the liber and sun-dried. This is either 
eaten like biscuits, or it is reduced to flour and cooked 
as an article of food. The tree is much prized by these 
naked savages, and in early spring yields a consider- 
able portion of their diet. This remarkable fact does 
not appear to have been observed by any traveller, 
previous to my exploration in 1880 of the hill tracts of 
Manipur, and apparently the nutritious properties of 
the bark have not been discovered by other Indian 
hill tribes. (See remarks under B. alba.) 
" Structure of the Wood, — White, moderately hard, 
close-grained. Weight 41 lb. per cubic foot, 
" It is very little used, but Wallich says it is hard 
and esteemed in Nepal for all purposes where strength 
and durability are required. " The wood is close- 
grained and takes a fine satin polish. It is particularly 
good for door panels, and the examples in the Gov- 
ernment House at Naiai Tal show that it is a valuable 
acquisition for ornamental work." (Atkinson's Him. 
Dist. X., N.-W.-P, Gaz., 818.)" 
t This is as true in regard to timber, planking,.&c., 
as for fuel— all the timber required for buildings, 
lines, &c., has been got for many yeare by cutting 
and sawing introduced trees without touchina- orif^i- 
nal reserves and we fancy the Abbotfiford Manager 
could more than conlirm the useful figures sent for 
, Rublicatiou lately by Mr, Maclare of Maskeliya. 
about the blae gum was that, while 
flourishing apace on the lower division up 
to 5,500 feet, it did not grow at all well 
on Upper Abbotsford— although strangely 
enough there are magnificent trees in and 
around Nuwara Eliya still higher up, The 
late Mr. Ferguson and his Manager were so 
convinced as to the comparative failure of 
this tree that they gave special warning to 
the Government Forest Officers not to wa..-3te 
time and money by trying plan^ations of it 
in the adjacent jungle clearings ; but their 
advice was not heeded, with the result that 
today the five-acre clearings planted with 
blue gums in the jungle by the old road to 
Nuwara Eliya are poor affairs — and stand 
as exhibitions of stunted failures. The blue 
gum tree serves well for factory (fuel) pur- 
poses save that the exuded gum is apt 
to fix on the flues and in the case of steam- 
engine boiler flues, especially,' to choke up 
the channels. Even in a domestic stove, the 
flue has been found blocked up after a time 
i^;nd has required hammer and chisel to cut 
out the adhering gum which had become 
almost as solidly fixed as if it were part 
of the iron ! 
One of the most attractive of the Eucalypts 
is E, citriodo a (the lemon-scented gum tree, 
from the pleasant odour of the crushed leaves 
or broken stems). Several fine specimens (as 
indeed of all the Eucalypts) are to be seen 
at Hakgala, and with us at Nuwara Eliya ; 
but we hear that the finest show of the 
lemon scented, perhaps, on a private estate, 
is found at Mr Gordon's bungalow on 
Rappahannock, Udapusellawa Altogether 
there must be over a score of different 
Eucalypts- many of them strikingly hand- 
some trees— in the plantation ; but curiously 
enough there is no specimen of E Pilularis 
which attracted attention some time ago 
on Carlabeck, for its size and good timber. -It 
is curious to notice the resemblance and the 
difference between the barks of three pro- 
minent Eucalypts— J arrah ' (2?. Marqinata) 
Red gum (Rosirata) and Iron Bark {E. Crehra) 
—all doing well as growing trees. 
Some of the Grevilleas here vie in size 
with the other large trees mentioned, and 
they and the "toons" (Cedrela toona ot the 
Himalayas) are freely scattered over the pro- 
perty. But the former (the " silky oak " 
of Queensland) may be taken to have 
reached the limit of successful cultivation 
if regard be had to its full growth as a tim- 
ber tree, on the neighbouring estates— Maha 
Eliya and Cc^lsay — and again on Tangakelle, 
Ouvahkelle and E'gin which present a 
wonderful sight in the uniform and nu- 
merous interesting belts of grevilleas, where 
we can recall the wide expanse of cultivti- 
tion being without a tree some years ago. 
Perhaps E. Bobusta— -which has become a 
favourite in these parts as at Nuwara 
Eliya— is a quicker grower than the 
Grrevillea'; while it also supplies a substan- 
tial timber. A grove of these between 
Abbotsford and Tangakelle shows very re- 
gular and successful growth ; but the strik- 
ing fact here is the way in which self-sown 
cinchonas have sprung up among the gums, 
groups of fine healthy plants showing how 
well shade agrees with the far-famed I'eruyiaq 
