m THE TROPICAL 
THE PEARLING INDUSTRY. 
A most interestins' report on the pearling in- 
dustry by Mr. Justice Dasliwood, the Govern- 
ment Resident of the North Territory, has been 
forwarded to the Acting; Premier of the Common- 
wealth. In 1901 the pearl shell raised in the 
Torres Straits fisheries was valued at £105,403. 
The industry is carried on by coloured labour, 
white men being unable to stand the trying char- 
acter of the life. The industry, it is said, will be 
practically killed by the White Australia policy. — 
Commercial Intelligence, Oct. 9. 
CEYLON GAME PRESERVATION 
SOCIETY. 
AND NILGIRI HARES. 
Some time ago^ the Nilgiri Game and Fish 
Preservation Association received a letter 
from the Fish and Game Preservation Asso- 
:Ciatlon of Ceylon, asking that the Asso- 
ci.ation might forward them fifty Nilgiri 
hares. The Association was then of opinion 
that there were not sufficient on the hills. 
They are now so plentiful and so great a 
nuisance to the native market gardeners that 
these men are everywhere seen, asking 
sportsmen to hunt them. I know a sports- 
man, says an Ooty correspondent, who has 
secured on putta land on an average two 
hares every time he was out, while the Asian's 
mighty porcupine slayer, who has, the bless- 
ings of all Badaga cultivators, has. without 
the aid of firearms, accounted for no less 
than 55 porcupine, for the flesh of which he 
has constant applications. The greatest 
enemy of the hare is the jackal, and it is 
a pretty sight to see some three or four of 
these animals surrounding a hare and cover- 
ing it down— especially on a moonlight night. 
Jackals are just now very plentiful in the 
nights near the Hobart Park, and are play- 
ing mischief with domestic poultry. Under 
the circumstances the Association might 
well give the Ceylon Association 500 not 50 
hures,— J ndian Daily News, Nov. 5. 
QUININE AND ITS HISTORY. 
The Cinchona treea were chiefly to be found npon 
the Eastern slopes of the Andes, and antil the dis- 
covery of quinine the Peruvian bark of commerce 
was drawn in the main from this district, the finest 
quality, grown in the town of Loxa, and known as 
Crown Bark, being long reserved for the Royal Family 
of Spain. Of course, the demands of Europe soon 
denuded the native forests of their trees, and led to 
the cultivation of Cinchona in other districts. The 
Dutch were the first to make the experiment of 
cultivating the plant in Java, where they met with 
ranch success, their example being followed by the 
Indian Government and by Eoglish residents in the 
East, with the result that for many years oast there 
have been extensive plantations in the Neilgherry 
Hilis, British Sikkira, Bombay, and British Burmah, 
while the growers of CrvIoo have extensively planted 
it in Holombo.* — W. N. Broun in Journal of Horti- 
cvltural, Oct. 23. 
* Not within 100 miles of Colombo which is by 
the seashore, but on the hilld from 3,000 to 6,000 feet 
ftbove Bea level.— Ed, T.A, 
AGRICULTUillST. [Dec. 1, 1902. 
PASTURE :— GOOD INTEREST. 
Mr. Alfred Tucker, secretary of the Totnes Union 
Chamber of Agriculture, writes to the Western Morn- 
ing News : — In November last I applied on an eighth 
of an acre of pasture land after the rate of 
four hundredweight of kainit and two hundred- 
weight superphosphate an acre, and in the first 
week in April one hundred weight of nitrate of 
soda. The grass adjoining was unmanorei. Thegriss 
was out the middle of July and the hay carefully 
weighed, with the following results : — No manure, 27 
cwt an acre; complete n a lure, 55 cwt an acre. I 
may add that the experiment was made on an old 
pasture field in good heart on clay and shale subsoil. 
— Liverpool Echo, 18th Aug. 1902. 
ROCK SALT FOR STOCK. 
Allow me through your paper to call the serious 
attention of all farmers, during this sadly wet 
and critical harvest, to the great imporcance of 
allowing all sheep and horned stock access con- 
stantly to as much rock salt as they will take, 
as well as a daily allowance of dry food. In the 
disastrous years of 1879 80, when I was farming 
largely for the late Duke of Bedford, [ fully 
believe that many flocks of sheep that then per- 
ished with fluke and other liver rot would have 
been saved if these simple directions had been 
attended to. — H S Penning in Agricultural 
Gazette. {Applicable to certain districts in Cjy- 
lon?— Ed. T.A.\ 
THE ORIGIN OP PEARLS. 
From early classic times the question of how pearls 
were formed has been discussed, and various theories 
have beea put forward to acoouut for the occurrence 
of these gems in oysters and other molluscs. The 
identity of the material from which they are built up 
with that of the shell-substance has long been recog- 
nised, and among the causes suggested for their pro- 
duction may be enumerated concretions from the shell- 
forming fluid, perforation of, on other injury to, the 
shell, an aborted or displaced egg or a grain of sand, 
acting as a nucleus round which the shell-forming 
fluid accumulates, and, the action of a parasite, sup- 
posed to produce in the mollusc a result anulogous to 
that caused in plants by the puncture of a gall-iusect. 
Among those who have tried to produce pearls by 
artificial means, the most famous is Linuseus, who 
received from the Swedish Diet a reward of about 
£500 for his supposed discovery, which, however, 
turned out to be valueless. Nevertheless, ic was, 
when first announced, rated so highly that it has 
been put forward by some writers as the reason why the 
great naturalist received the patent of nobility which 
is generally supposed to have been the reward for his 
services to Science. Dr H L Jameson, who has lately 
re-arranged the collection of pearl-bearing oysters 
in the British Museum (Natural Hiatory) has devoted 
a good deal of time and labour to the investigation of 
this matter and the results arrived at by him have just 
been published in the Proceedings of the Zoological 
Society. He has come to the conclusion that true 
pearls, whi6h are found in the flesh substance of the 
oyster or mussel, are entirely due to the presence of 
a parasite. What he call ' blisters,' or secretions of 
pearly matter attached to the interior of the shell are 
produced by the deposit of naoie or mother-of-pearl, 
in order to close an aperture, ari-ing from injury, or 
to coat some irritating foreign substance introduced 
between the animal and its shell. Good examples of 
' blisters ' may be seen in the Natural History Museum 
in the small metal images of Buddha, inserted by the 
Chinese in the shell of a pearl-bearing, and coated 
with mother-of-pearl, and the same collection ooQtaina 
sqiaU fiah and craba similarly coated. 
