§58 
IHE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [June 1, 1903. 
DESICCATED BANANA: A NEW 
INDUSTRY. 
May 5. 
Dear Sir, — As I know you are interested 
in .ill inilustries coaiiected with Ceylon, I 
am sending you a simple of semi-desiccated 
banana, or plantain, sent me from home, 
whicli the sender informs me is usually 
supplied from the West Indies, and which is 
used in large quantities by bakers for fancy 
cakes instead of, or along with, orange-peel. 
As there appears to me to be an opening 
for business with home in this stuff, I vvrite to 
ask you if you know of any house out here 
that deal in it, or if it has ever been tried. — 
Yours sincerely, ENQUIRER. 
[This letter should have appeared before. 
Can any one tell us if a local experiment 
has been made ? Respecting plantain "flour " 
we have had a good deal of discussion ; but 
the "desiccated plantain" is new. Why 
should the local mills not desiccate plantains 
as well as coconuts ? But is the supply of 
fruit sufficient? At present the Colombo 
fruit market, we suspect, requires all the plan- 
tains that can be sent to it; and the West 
Indian islands with their much richer soil 
.and proximity to England and the United 
States can supply the fruit both natural and 
desiccated at a rate, probably, to beat Ceylon ? 
Still there should be no harm in trying an 
experiment at one or other of the local 
Desiccating Mills.— Ed. T.A.] 
DESICCATED PLANTAINS AND 
FRUIT CANNING. 
May 15th, 
Dear Sir,--I am glad to see the Old Rag 
taking up, as is its wont, the questions of 
new products and new industries. There 
is awful waste of fruits in the Island. 
Partly, owing to the temperature which is 
fatal to the keeping of ripe fruit for more 
than two or three days, and partly owing 
to the rush with which crops like mangoes, 
jambus and country pines come on, scarcely 
more than one-half of the low-country fruit 
is consumed. If canning fruit is set up, 
it should pay. Fancy our getting canned 
pine-apples from the Straits ! But plan- 
tains are always in season, and their culti- 
vation and production can be indefinitely 
increased if desiccating be started on a 
large scale. Vavasseur's and the Orient 
Company have facilities at hand for the 
enterprise ; but Lipton and the Australian 
Stores may be first in the field. I have 
sun-dried ripe pls,ntains sliced in two, and 
they both keep well, and are as tasty as 
tigs, or they may be stewed. Pity there is 
not more enterprise in our midst.— Yours 
truly, LOWCOUNTRY. 
DESICCATED BANANAS. 
May 15. 
SlB,— With reference to " Inquirer" 's letter 
re desiccated bananas and your note on same, 
I wish to point out that the supply of 
plantains would be unlimited in Ceylon if a. 
fair price could be offered. They will grow 
luxuriantly iu dry country with irrigation and 
give freight to the new Railway Line. At pre- 
sent the producer can only get an average of 
R30 per lOG bunches, when in the West 
Indies, according to Mr Fawcatt of the 
Public Gardens, Jamaica, the average of the 
contracts are £3. 1.5. 0. per 100, or R13L 
Half of this would be very remunerative in 
Ceylon and allow for cultivation, where at 
present the banana is generally grown as 
a by-product. That enormous difference in 
price would justify " Inquirer" to think that 
there is a very profitable industry to create. — 
Yours truly, 
A. VAN DER POORTBN. 
[The sooner an experiment is made in 
desiccating, and shipping, an .appreciable 
sample, to try in London, the better. Could 
Mr. Vanderpoorten himself not prepare such 
a sample and test the market ? We fear 
the voyage is too long from Colombo to 
Europe to b3 able to send bunches of green 
plantains.— Ed. T.A,'] 
PLANTING IN B. C. AFRICA: 
COFFEE, "TEA, TOBACCO. 
AN ADVERSE REPORT. 
May 16. 
Sir. — With your permission I will make a 
few remarks on an article in Tropical Agri- 
culturist, 1st May, on "Planting in British 
Central Africa" referring to a "fortune" to be 
made in Tob icco — and Tea, written by a bit of 
"young euthu^iasin " from Ceylon. I was right 
through the Elantyre District in June-July, last 
year, from " Katnnga's " to Zomba via Blantyre, 
and again in November from Zomba to Blantyre 
and from Blantyre via Cholo to Cbiromo, so 
that I passed through a considerable portion of 
the planting district. As your correspondent 
says, c iffee is almost a thing of the p-iSt. What- 
ever induced any man to plant coffee there, ia 
more than I can understaiid. The lay of land is ex- 
cellent, soil is very gooil, elevation good, but— the 
average yearly drought may be reckoned at seven 
months. Rainfall is, I believe, about 60 in. in Blan- 
tyre, badly distributed. Where our old friend, Mr 
Henry Brovvn, is, on the magnificent M'lanje 
mountain, the rainfall is a little more, and there 
by care and unceasing attention a man may scrape 
along. A few men have made money in coffee by 
having the luck to get a rather better rainfall than 
usual at first or second crop season and then selling 
their estates. The life of the coffee seems to be 
about 4 years from a plantei's poini of view. The 
young stuff seems to come on in spite of the 
drought, but as soon as it has borne one or two 
crops it simply snuffs out. As to Tea and a " for- 
tune " in local consumption, at 33 per lb,, the 
whole of British Central Africa cannot contain, I 
fancy, more than 300 white people, so where does the 
consumption come in ? As to exporting it— well> 
wait for the railway, if it ever comes, and even 
then cost of transport will kill it. As for Tobacco, 
a coarse kind can be grown and at present there is 
a somewhat precarious market for it in S. Africa 
as "Boer" tobacco. The foregoing is the real 
state of things, according to my enquiries and 
observations. As to labour, it is cheap but not 
permanent. Each male native has to work a month 
in each year or pay double hut tax (6s) instead of 
(3s). They are sent to Blantyre in thousaads each 
