330 
THE TEOPICAL AGEICULirLiST. 
[Nov. 1, im. 
THE DARJILING TEA CROP. 
RESULTS OF THE DISASTER. 
There h&a been, we cannot but think, some mis- 
apprehensioa about the effects of the cyclone which 
recently swept over theDatjiliug district, as regards 
the damage done to tea estates and the probable 
results on the Darjiling crop for the year. A tea 
garden in the hills is planted, as a rule, on a series 
of small spurs, that is, on the side of a hill which 
is divided up into separate sloping strips by a number 
of jhoras or ravines. Flats — even what are called 
flats in the hills — are rare and of small area, and 
are usually narrow strips along the banks of the 
main streams, flowing at a moderate gradient at the 
bottom of the big valleys ; these narrow strips being 
cut up into small sections by the minor jhoras or 
ravines joining the main stream. In any very heavy 
rain there is always the danger of bits along the 
edges of the jhoras being cut away by a big rush 
of water, cr of being undermined and falling in ; 
but there is very little possibility of the main surface 
of the spurs being carried away. We may therefore 
take it for granted that no one slip of any really 
large area is at all probable. 
That there may have been a great number of small 
slips is of course probable, but we do not thiuk that 
the aggregate area of these is likely to be sufficient 
to seriously affect the outturn for the balance of 
the season. Of Messrs. Finlay Muir and Co. gardens, 
it is stated, Moondakoti lost three houses, the people 
lost their belongings, but no lives were lost, and 
evidently no tea. Dhajia was " scarred with land- 
slips from end to end,"— evidently slips in the jhoras ; 
but " the tea, however, bad not suffered." Phuguri 
reports considerable damage to buildings and forests, 
stable and tea house unroofed, factory and bungalow 
badly shaken (by the way — which is the tea house 
and which is the factory ? reporters on the dailies 
are not very well up in technique ;) roads were blocked 
and " about an acre of tea was damaged, but was 
being repaired." This latter remark was a touch of 
genius. We have no doubt many of our readers would 
very much like to know how damaged tea is repaired, 
and that a good deal more than an acre would be found, 
on jnost gardens, sadly in need of the "repairers " 
skill, without the excuse of a cyclone. Who does tha 
tea repairs on a damaged garden ? 
Darjiling gardens as a rule stop plucking early, 
and the bulk of the crop had been made before the 
storm. Estimating that perhaps 15 to 20 per cent 
of the total outturn for the year was still to come, 
the couple of hundred acres of tea lost or "damaged" 
(assuming the figures quoted above stand good), will 
not effect the amount still to come down to Calcutta 
to any really appreciable extent, and there will pro- 
bably not be the boom in Darjiling prices, that some 
seemed to anticipate. — The Planter, Oct. 7. 
COFFEE IN JAVA. 
Mr. Frank Adam writing to us from "Glen 
Nevis" Estate, i3anjoewana;ie, Java, under date, 
22nd Sept. 1899. Saj's : — I enclose herewith the 
two tables of coflee statistics, which I have 
compiled from reliable Dutch sources, See 
page 331. Perliaps you may like to have 
them for the Tropical Agriculturist. 
Prospects in Java for next years' coffee-crop, 
are exceedingly f^ood. We are having excellent 
weather for the blossom, which, this year, has 
been very early. Already on the three estates, 
wiiich are under niy directorship (*' Glen Nevis," 
" (ilen Fallock " and " Glen Luss") a nice amount 
of blossom has opened and set, and there is still 
a, lot of bud to open, I am hopefully looking 
forward to crop, over the three estates, of some- 
where about 11 piculs per bouw equal to about 
eight cwts. per acre. 
ALL ABOUT EUBBEE. 
BY J. FEEGCSON. 
About twenty years ago, when King Coffee was 
in his last dying struggles, and the Ceylon planters 
were turning their attention to other economic 
plant.", in the hope of staving off the ruin which 
was staring them in the face, I, like many others, 
began to make enquiries about the cultivation 
of the rubber tree, only to lind that the sum 
total of the information to be gathered, from all 
sources, was absolutely nothing, if, at that time, 
such a book had existed as the one I have just 
laid down,—" All About Rubber, by J. Ferguson," 
— I am sure that many a disconsolate coffee 
planter would have rushed into rubber, and by 
this time, 1 doubt not, would hiive been a pros- 
perous glower of caoutchouc trees. Had I net 
this work, with all its facts and figures, before 
me, I would have been disinclined lo believe that 
so p;uch knowledge of this subject existed, when 
I recall the state of ignorance we all laboured 
under, only a short twenty j'ears.ago. From a 
book of 340 pages of closely printed matter one 
naturally expects to be able to extract a con- 
siderable amount of information, but 1 am 
sui prised at the extraordinary results of Mr. 
Ferguson's research, and can only congratulate 
tlie rubber planters of the present day in having 
such a source of knowledge to turn to, as this 
book is. We are not only told of the planting 
experiences of rubber in Ceylon, but in many 
other countries, and, in addition, about experi- 
ments carried on in Trinidad and the ex]jloiting 
of the industry in the French Soudan. Indeed, 
no country that has been blessed with an indi- 
genous growth of caoutchouc, or has imported 
and acclimatized the tree, is omitted from the 
long list laid before the reader of this valuable 
work, I know of nothing, the demand for which 
is more likely to increase as time goes on, than 
Indian rubber. What with cycle and carriage 
tyres, horse shoes, diggers' boots and macintosh 
coats, the qu.antity required annually must be 
enormous, and there is every probability of many 
other uses, to which rubber can be applied, 
coming into existence. Therefore I am inclined 
to believe that no planting industry shadows 
forth a better prospect than that of rubber- 
growing, and no book can compare with "All 
About Rubber " in u.sefulneis to the planter 
who intends, or has already commenced, to 
cultivate the caoutchouc tree. 
Cosmopolite. 
♦ 
OnuM-EATiNG IN ENGLAND.— A Warning note, 
as to the extent to which the practice of opium- 
eating prevails in the provinces (as well as 
London), is sounded by one of our readers. He 
writes :— " I believe that in the Fen districts of 
Hunts and Cambridgeshire opium is consumed to 
a large extent by the working classes, and is 
purcliased by them from the local chemists, as I 
am informed, in ' pieces as large as your two 
fingers,' and made into pills by themselves. I 
know an old washerwoman of eighty who con- 
stantly takes it, and not unfrequently is found 
falling asleep over her wash-tub of an afternoon 
as a result; I believe that if inquiries were made 
in villages bordering on the Fen district it would 
be found that quite a trade is done by chemists 
in the drug.— Z>«% Chronicle, Sept, 23, 
