Oct. 1, 1902.] THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
273 
Had it not been that the cipacifcy of the 
carrier had to be considered I have no doubt 
I could have transferred 100 at least before 
dusk for the stream simply swarms with 
young trout and I fished only a few hundred 
yards of by no means the best of it. 
I have had better sport than this in Old 
Scotland, but I've often had much worse ; 
and, though I did not succeed in landing two 
trout at one cast, with a couple of flies on, 
I had frequent double rises and might have 
done it had I used more svxitable flies for such 
work. 
I think the Club should present a few of 
those little fishes to all members of the Club 
within a reasonable distance of Nuwara 
Eliya, provided they have suitable ponds 
or streams which they will endeavour to 
protect from the rapacious curry-pot of our 
friend, Ramasamy, 
This would help to start the general dis- 
tribution of these flsh, which is much to be 
desired, I think.— Yours faithfully, 
JOHN ERASER. 
PAPAIN 08 PEP«INE. 
August 1902. 
Dear Sir, — In your T. A. number of 1st Oct,, 
1898, page 236, I found au article about Papain. It 
ia said :— " Out of many fruits you will only be 
able to obtain bub a few ounces, whereas from 
the trunk of the tree and other parts of the plant 
you can obtain several pounds." I am intending 
to make a trial with Papain producing, but not 
knowing how to obtain it from tiie trunk I should 
be very thankful to anyone with experience for 
information,— Yours truly, 
A DELI (SUMATRA) PLANTER. 
[Who has had experience of Papain extracting or 
collecting in Ceylon ? We should advise our Deli 
friend to make experiments on his own account 
and judge by the result and the report of his 
European Agents. — Ed. T,A.] 
THE SUPPLY OP COCONUTS FOR LOCAL 
WANTS AND EXPORT. 
August 26. 
Sir,— Ir» reply to " Cocos Nucifera " in 
your issue of August 22nd, I would be in- 
clined to say that local consumption of 
coconut products has increased prodigiously 
within the past 20 years, perhaps even to 
an extent beyond the supply made by 
extended cultivation. When I first came to 
Ceylon the use of coconuts was confined 
to householders in town and well-to-do 
owners of country gardens. But now a days 
coconuts for sale are a feature in every 
village bazaar throughout the hill as well 
as low country, and poor indeed is the 
Sinhalese who does not make use of the 
ubiquitous palm nut. However high the 
price offered by export dealers, native 
families, I believe, will not now forego 
their usual share of coconuts, so that in 
reality the supply for foreign trade comes 
from the large plantations rather than the 
small gardens.— Yours, etc., 
TRADER. 
[Our calculation used to be 350 to 400 mil- 
oa coconuts to supply the expovt tvft<3e 
and as many more for local food purposes. 
For the latter estimate, say, we have, 
700,000 households ushig on an average 1 to 
2 nuts daily — and take nut a day 
which will be .S8.3 million nuts a year. In 
this way we may make up an estimate 
of 800 million nuts as a year's crop in 
Ceylon ; but one estimate went as high 
for a good season as a thousand million 
of nuts.- Ed. T.A.] 
WATER BOTTLES AND FIRE— TESTED. 
Aug. 27. 
Dear Sir, — I noticed in your issue of the 
23rd instant a statement by a "Mr. Percy 
Burd of Cheltenham " on " Watter Bottles 
and Fires " which struck me at the time 
as rather tall and I thought it would be 
rather interesting to test its probability. 
In the first instance it is a matter of some 
considerable difficulty to get a candle alight 
with a lens even in this country. The wax 
melts freely and the wick gets charred and 
glowing, but the candle does not burst into 
flame, at least in my experience. 
Secondly, I have never seen carriage lamps 
fitted with burning glasses. They are generally 
made with plane glasses, the light being 
concentrated by means of silvered reflectors 
at the back and sides, which would make 
the feat still more difficult. 
Thirdly, it is not difficult to compute from 
the data what the elevation of the sun was 
at the time and place mentioned. It is easy 
to see that the altitude of the sun must 
have been equal to the gradient of the road, 
for t)he sun's beat to have produced its 
maximum effect. The following table gives 
the elevation of the sun above the horizon 
at Canterbury ,at the beginning, middle and 
end of October, between 2 30 p.m. and 3-.30 
p.m., and the corresponding gradient 
At beginning At middle. At end of 
of October. ' October. 
a 
a 
a 
O 
q 
o 
a 
o 
a 
"3 
> 
"S 
<a 
> 
•5 
E> 
•B 
t-i 
(O 
<3 
u 
3 
O 
s 
o 
H 
0 
27° 
1 
in 
2 
22° 
1 
in 
170 
in 
H 
240 
1 
in 
2i 
18° 
1 
in 
3 
130 
in 
20° 
1 
in 
2i 
150 
1 
in 
31 
10° 
in 
51 
So that, even if the two flrst objections were 
waived, the writer was apparently travel- 
ling along a road about two and a half times 
as steep as the steepest carriage track 
allowed in England (I in 15). If his carriage 
candles did get alight, it is improbable 
that the sun's heat was the cause.— Truly 
yours, F. R. H. S. 
USEFUL TREES FOR THE HILL 
COUNTRY. 
Abbotsford, Aug. 29. 
Dear Sir,— If the tree on Glasgow Estate 
is Ao'ocarpiis fraxinifolius it isn't in it with 
Acrocarpus graudis. 1 have both of these 
here and the latter is far and away the finer 
tree of the two ; but trees vary so in dif- 
ferent situations and conditions that one 
oughta't .to dogmatise, The seed of tU<j 
