in 
Itm TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST, iMay 1, l&OO. 
all the cocoa producing couiitriea which 
consume their own growths, 1 do not think 
another 66 million pounds too high an es- 
timate) in six years, the supply would by 
adding the same increase (40 per cent) that 
has taken phice since 1894, amount to 350 
million pounds a year ; whilst the consiimp- 
tion at a yearly hicrease of 10 per cent for 
six years, making 6U per cent in all, would 
amount to 400 million pounds ; and as far 
as can be judged at present it is the con- 
sumption rather than the supply, that is 
the most likely to keep on steadily increas- 
ing during this period, so that about 1,907 
there will be a deficit of about 50 million 
pounds or 280,000 bags, which would take at 
least 100,000 acres of land to produce. 
At present, thanks to the large stocks that 
had been accumulating since 1895-1896, tlie 
sudden spurt in tlie demand has been able 
to satisfy itself, but this will not be the 
case in the future, as at present we are 
not only reducing the stocks, but are eating 
u]j the new crops as fast as they ari-ive. 
When Guayaquil and St. Thome poured 
their bumper crops last year into the Evu'o- 
peaii markets, a tremendous fall in prices 
was prophesied, instead of which they were 
bought up greedily, and at the beginning 
of tlie year prices were higher than evei-, 
and will be so again as soon as the first 
pressui^e to sell is over. If this year, and 
1901 are lai'ge crop years (to humour the 
old fable of three fat j^ears and one lean 
one) after that there is every sign of a 
much larger supply being needed by the 
manufacturers it the present demand for 
chocolate by the million is to be maintained. 
Meanwhile here are the figures comparing 
the present stocks for the past five years, 
by which it will be seen that in spite of 
the 21 million pounds extra, which the five 
producing countries mentioned g;i,ve last year 
over 1898, the present stock shows we have 
reduced the recent accumulations by 110,000 
bags = another 20 million pounds, so that 
I am not far wrong in estimating the short- 
age in the next six years at about 50 
million pounds unless the present rate of 
increase in the supply is considerably 
enlarged : — 
1900. 1899. 1898. 18»7. 1890. 
Stock — Bags. Bags. Bags. Bags. Bags. 
London 77,820 91,038 121,044 140,99.5 151,32-3 
liiverpool 2,445 3,384 954 3,631 6,469 
Havre 80,031 77,6c7 60,326 123,135 112,553 
160,296 172,079 180,324 267,761 270,345 
'^^>— 
ROYAL BOlWNfC GARDENS. 
With this issue of the Tropical Agriculturist 
we include in a Supplement the greater 
portion of Mr. Willis's Administration Report 
lor 1899. There is no special novelty about 
it, save the first appearance of a subsidiary 
Report from the Entomologist ; but there is 
a great deal of i;seful information under a 
variety of tieads and signs of progress in a 
variety of directions. The Curator furnishes 
a good deal of iiiterest respecting the Pera- 
deniya Gardens (telling us, among otlier 
things, that the Experimental Plots now re- 
present thirty ditferent tropical products) 
just as Mr. Nock does regarding the Hakgala 
Gardens where, however, besides drought, 
such enemies as hares, moosedeer, rats and 
porcupine are troublesome ; while a fsmall 
herd of elephants put in an ttppearance 
within 50 yards of the Superintendent's 
bungalow in June last! The laying out of 
the gi-ound near the new Picnic Arbour is 
one of the great improvements of the year ; 
and the young camphor trees are reported to 
be growing vigorously. As usual Mr. Willis 
has a good decil to say on our staple pro- 
ducts and the closing paragraph on tea is 
50 significant that we must quote :^ 
The planting community is no->v well acquainted 
with their a)ipeai-ance and Avith the waj'S of 
treating them (the tea hlights.) There is thus 
every ground for hope that the it dustrj' will 
never suffer from bliglit in the way that coffee 
(lid, as the danger is much more likely to be 
recognized and taken in time by preventive 
measures. A "scientific" era is now beginning 
for this industry, and success will be to those 
who most intelligently apply to practice the im- 
proved methods of cultivation, manufacture, 
prevention of disease, &c., just as is the case 
with other long-established cultivation industries. 
This must be reassuring ; but we do not 
suppose that Mr. Willis quite means that had 
"a scientific era" been inaugurated dux-ing 
the early "seventies", it would hiwe saved 
" coffee"? We have the fact that Dr. 
Thwaites,F.B.s.,the then highest living autho- 
rity as regards fungi, declaimed that he knew of 
no remedy for hernileia vnstatri:c in its 
attacks on coffee from the first day he 
saw it and his judgment was borne out by 
all after-experience under Dr. Trimen, Dr. 
Morris and Professor Marshall Ward. The 
drawing is to be allowed. Already, those 
engaged in the latter calling are protesting 
against the rule which compels them to 
take out a license — ^nominally free, but which 
they cannot easily obtain without sundry 
santosums to subordinate Goverment ser- 
vants. They are not likely to be pleased 
with the further proposed curtailment of 
their rights in regard to the enjoyment of 
their own projierty, by the refusal to allow 
sweet toddy to be drawn at all, in areas in 
which ti-ecs are taxed for fermented toddy. 
In South t"anara, Tinnevelly and M.adras 
City, the Abkari Coinmissioiier, while separ- 
ating the two industries, has given instruc- 
tions that jaggcrj^ manufacturers be allowed 
to commence work before their trees are 
marked and registered, and also be given 
longer hours than hitherto for plying their 
calling. Even these concessions have failed 
to satisfy Tinnevelly, where there is a great 
jaggery industry, and which has set on 
foot an agitation for the removal of all 
rules and restrictions which harass an un- 
taxed trade through blackmailers. Bombay 
has solved the difficulty by holding all palm 
juice to be fermented liquor, and taxing 
every coconut ti'ee that is tapped, in some 
places as high as R12 ! How would that work- 
out for (Jeylon, with its 300,000 coconut 
trees tapped for toddy ? It would yield 
R3,600,000, ^j/^/s the income from licenses for 
taverns for the sale of arrack ! But it is the 
illicit trade in toddy we ;ire dealing with 
now, and which we should like to see checked 
by a system of taxation which will leave 
the jaggery industry free, and that can best 
