June 1, 1908.] THE TROPICAL AGWCULTURIST. 
827 
sleeper logs for our railway and intimating 
that the Company will be ready to take 
delivpry in April or May next, at prices 
ranging from 2/6 to 5/ per sleeper, sleept r 
log, or pair of either. So you will see 
business is meant at last. 
■ The first shipment of material for the 
line is on the way out, and oper.itions are 
to be started in earnest on the trace in 
April, yo we will get our railway, altiiough 
it maybe too late to he of any service to the 
coffee industry ; for it is fast becoming an 
enterprise of the past. 
Whole districts have been let out of cultiva- 
tion with the exception of a few estates that 
have money or minor products to depend 
upon for making ends meet. 
T0I5ACC0, CHILLIES AND COTTON ARE GETTING 
A PAIR TRIAL 
on a liiig scale for the home market by the 
large Companies and private individuals in 
a small way. Rubber is also being grown : 
Ficus Elastica and Ceara are the only varieties 
of rubber producing trees that have been 
introduced. We have, of course, some indi- 
genous trees, and the vines Landolphia, bub 
the yield from them is small, although the 
rubber is of good quality. 
Mlanji can grow tea well ; a few acres, 
three years old, here simply surprise 
everybody who has seen them. The growth 
is equal to five and six year old tea in 
most districts in Ceylon, due probably to 
the magnificent virgin soil we have got. 
Messrs. Willisford and Ferrier, of the Blantyre 
and East Africa Co., Ltd., who were here 
lately, were agreeably surprised at our tea 
prospects in Mlanji and wondered why 
planters did noc go in for it extensively long 
ago, One remarked: " There is a fortune in 
tea here with your cheap labour." 1 have 
managed to get planted now over 100 acres 
of tea, and Mr. Lauderdale has also got a 
few acres and is extending like myself. So we 
will prove in the course of a few years what 
can be done with the cup that cheers. 
Ceylon need not be afraid of a rival in 
British Central Africa tea, for although wo 
.have a huge country to work on, the 
rainfall is too small— from 20 to 45 in. per 
annum— over the whole country and that 
rainfall only on from three to four months 
in the year. During the other eight or nine 
months there is hardly an inch falls. It is 
different with us, however, as proved by 
the following table kept here for the past 
ten year 
S : — 
Days. 
Iiiclies. 
Days. 
Inches, 
1892 . 
..110 
90-08 
1897 
... 97 
64 67 
1893 . 
..132 
89 78 
1898 
...118 
118 62 
1894 . 
..138 
82-39 
1899 
.. 129 
88-69 
189.5 . 
..125 
106 01 
1900 
..101 
8-2-07 
1896 . 
.. 96 
95 40 
1901 
...112 
84-31 
The bulk of our rain falls f oni December to 
April, but hardly a month passes here 
without a few inches. Our superior rainfall 
to the other parts of British Central Africa, 
is due to our situation on the S. K. slopes 
of Mlanji momitiiin, which iui:s up lo an 
elevation of nearly 10,000 feet. So I put 
our heavy rainfall" down to the moisture- 
laden clouds coming in contact with the 
cool atmosphere of the mountain. On the 
other side of Mlanji they get a drizzle, when 
we get heavy rain. The division is much the 
SAME AS YOUR CENTRAL AND UVA PtlOVINCE, 
and the same remark might be applied to 
Mlanji S.-E. and N.-W. as used to "be made 
in coming up from the Uva side. " Change 
coacs for Niiwara Eliya." 
The African Lakes Co, have brought out 
an expert for cigar toiiacco. Mr. L. Van 
Lemhoff who had many years' experience 
in Sumatra aud recently fiiiished an engage- 
ment of three years as Government expert 
for Natal. Mr. Lemholf decided on Mlanji 
for his experiments and has set to work to 
give the tob.icco, cigar leaf, a fair trial. 
No expense or trouble is being spared on 
some 40 to 30 acres of a cleariiig which the 
writer saw last month. A train of oxen, 
six ii number, were at work ploughing, 
turning up the soil to the depth of some 
15 inches. This has been done over the whole 
clearing three or four times, as well as 
harrowing, so that one can push a 
stick into the soil as if it were a 
'bag of floui'. Some four large sheds 
about 80 feet by 3'J and 15 feet high, regular 
Sumatra style of buildings, jire in course of 
erection to house the tobacco. Sticks and 
telegraph wire have been procured for hang- 
ing the leaves upon. 
Nurseries are certainly a marvel of neatness 
and style, beds laid out 10 feet by 4, with 
good paths between and all covered with a 
frame of sawn timber 8 in v/ide, covered with 
calico to shade the seedlings. This frame also 
keeps off insects, and ii only removed to 
water the plants. 
If Sumatra seed-leaf tobacco, for cigar 
wrappers, does not succeed under the most 
careful management, and the fair trial it is 
getting from Mr Van Lemhoif and his assist- 
ant, it is doubtful if this valuable leaf will do 
anywhere in B C A. A very fine pipe tobacco 
is grown as well as a leaf quite good enough 
for filler.=i, if not for wrappers, from Havana 
seed-leaf. No Sumatra seed-leaf tobacco, how- 
ever, has been tried before. 
MR. LEMHOPF'S EXPERIMENTS 
will be watched with much interest because, 
if success crowns his efforts, tlu-re will be a 
f(jrtune in cigar wrapper tobacco-growing in 
this protectorate. The Blantyre a:id East 
African Co., Limited, have got two Ajuerican 
tobacco men out, to cure j-ellow leaf for the 
London, and other m.arkets, and this Com- 
pany has got a considerable acreage l eady for 
planting up on their different estates at 
Zomba, Blantyre, Cholo and Mlanji. We 
hear cf clearings even up to 100 acres in ex- 
tent on some estates, which is rather a big 
undertaking at first go oil and will tax their 
uttermost ingenuity to provide house, joom 
handle and cure with our unskilled labour. 
May their efforts be crowned with th« 
success they really deserve. 
COTTON 
of the Egyptian variety is being planted 
up with this rainy season, by Industrial 
Missions and some private planters to tes-t 
this product in a practical way. A sample 
sent home by us some three ye.-irs ago was 
