Nov. 1, 1902, J 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
early publication may be expected. TheBC two are 
a volume on Ants by Colonel C T Bineiham, and 
auotber on Longioorn Ooleoptera by Mr C J Gahan. 
A volume of Laud-Mollnsca is also in hand, and 
arrangements are being made for fnrtber additions 
to the general series. 
« ' 
CINCHONA IN BENGAL. 
According to the annual report; by Major Prain, 
Superintendent of Cinchona Cultivation in Benf];al, 
13.434 lb. of cinchona febrifuge were manu- 
factured last year at the Government Cinchona 
plantation in Sikkim, an increase, as compared 
with the previous year, of 3,599 lb. Tliis in- 
creased quantity included 2,663 Cinch sulphate, 
of quinine, and 936 lb, of cinchona fel>rifucre. 
The receipts for the year amounted to Rl,9l,922 
as compared with R2,27,087 for tlie preceding 
year. ^Madras Mail, Sept. 27. 
"ON THE ORIGIN OP PEARLS." 
Dr. H. Lyster Jameson, M.A., is good 
enough to send us a copy of his paper ou 
this subject reproduced from the proceed- 
ings of the Zoological Society of London. It 
is accompanied by four full pages of illus- 
trations and a list of literature on the 
subject. Dr. Jameson controverts the 
theory that the pearl is due to the intrusion 
of an irritating body (a grain of sand, &c.,) 
which the oyster proceeds to coat with 
carbonate of lime, so elaborating the pearl. 
Hi 8 investigations go to show that the in- 
trusion is rather by ii living parasite, a 
" trematode." Trematode larvae cause sacs 
to develope and these lead to pearl formation ; 
but one must read the paper very carefully, to 
appreciate the full importanceof the investiga- 
tion carried on by the author and scientist. 
The paper should be of great use to Professor 
Herdman and Mr, James Hornell. 
RICE IN INDIA AND AMERICA. 
We remember reading a short time ago a 
learned discussion, as to whether India is the 
poorer for the growing volume of her exports; 
and the issue specially turned on whether the 
rice which was exported from the country was 
surplus stock, in excess of its needs, or 
whether it represented the food of the people 
which they were too poor to purchase, and 
for the lack of which they died in thousands 
and, in bad years, in millions. In recent 
years at least— whatever may have been the 
case a century back, India is believed to have 
always had rice enough for the needs of all 
her population ; and the reason why famines 
that is scarcity in particular tracts, proved dis- 
astrous was mainly, if not solely, through the 
difficulty of transporting food whither it was 
most needed. We are by no means sure that 
India would be any the richer for the non- 
exportation of rice ; but if the successful 
growth of rice in particular States in 
America has not been exaggerated, as 
has been the cultivation of te,i, India 
will cease to be regarded in the markets 
of the world, at any rate in jthose at .a dis- 
tance, 8,8 A u««essaiy eoui'ce of supply. WUeu 
that happens, may we expect Indian famines 
to cease to decimate the population, or will 
the growth of more remunerative crops take 
the place of rice? We quote as follows 
from an Indian paper, as a new proof of 
the almightiness of Yankeedom :— 
" Writing of the growth of rice cultivation in 
Louisiana, the Zoitisiaftrt Pia/i/e»' says : Hundreds 
of thousands of acres of land are being prepared for 
rice culture, and unless some adverse conditions in- 
tervene, our rice crop siiould be doubled, or tripled, 
within the next ten years. The prairies of South- 
western Louisiana have produced rice in small quan- 
tities for a century; but it has only been of late 
years that active efforts have been made tliere in 
the direction of the artilicial irrigation of rice. In 
Ljuisiana and Eastern Texas there were produced 
last year some 3^ million bags of rice, equal to 
about 175,000 short tons of clean rice. This large 
production has been nearly all marketed, and the 
advent of the new rice crop on September 1st will 
liiid but little of the oi l crop remaining on hand, 
the distribution of the last crop, tiie largest ever 
produced, having been successfully made and at 
good prices. All this is leading to new efforts in 
every direction for the enlargement of the industry, 
and one of the most notable of these schemes is 
that of the Bradford Canal, which will be about 75 
miles long and 250 feet wide, and vvill afford ample 
irrigation for from 500,000 to 700,000 acres of land 
through the district which it will traverse." 
CEYLON PYTHONS GALORE. 
With reference to the statement of a Galle 
correspondent that a python lOJ feet long was 
killed near that town while attacking a goat, 
a Kadugannawa planter writes: — 
" It may interest you to hear that three pythons 
were killed in the tea on this estate during IQOli 
ihe largest measured lift. 6 in, by 18 inches in 
girth and the other two about 10ft. 6in. and 10 
feet respectively." 
Tennent's reference in his "Natural History " 
is as follows : — 
Thegreat python (tiie "boa," as it is commonly 
designated by Europeans, the "anaconda" of 
Eastern story), wiiich is supposed to crush the 
bones of an elephant, and to swallow the tiger, is 
found, though not of such portentous dimensions, 
in the cinnamon gardens within a mile of the 
fnrt of Colombo,* where it feeds on hog deer, and 
odier smaller animals. The natives occasionally 
take it alive, and securing it to a pole expose it for 
sale as a curiosity. Que that was brought to me 
tied in this way measured seventeen feet with a 
proportionate thickness : but one more fully grown 
which crossed niy path on a coffee estate on the 
Peacock Mountain at Pusilawa, considerably 
exceeded these dimensions. Another which I 
watched in the garden at Elie House, near 
Colombo, surprised me by the ease with which it 
erected itself almost perpendicularly in order to 
scale a wall upwards of ten feel high. The 
Singhalese assert that when it has swallowed a 
deer, or any animal of similarly inconvenient 
bulk, the python draws itself through the narrow 
aperture between two trees, in order to crusU the 
bones and assist in the process of deglutition. 
* [That was 40 to 50 years ngo when jackals 
ptowled nightly along Tvuret Koad 1— Eo, T.A-\ 
