THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. [July 1, 1698. 
Rubber Plantino in the SruAiTs.— Tint a Ceylon 
man should decide, as Mr. Gordon Browu has done, 
to go all the way to the Btraita to plaut up 1,000 acre i 
with Para rubber shows what advantages tha Gov- 
ernment of the Protected Malay States are deriving 
from their liberal tioatment of the Ixnd question. 
It cannot be asserted f t instance that there is not 
abundance of laud in Cdylon quite as suitable as 
any in the Malay Peninsular for the cuUivation of 
para rubbsr, bvit owing to the difti';ulty of securing 
it, and the high price probably demanded for it, an 
enterprising planter leaves the inland and embarks 
elsewhere. It seems to us that this sort of thing 
onght to be prevented, if possible. Why should not 
Government, even now at the eleventh hour, turn 
round and say that they will alienate no more land 
form the Crown by outright sale except in certain 
specified cases ? if this were done and a yearly 
rent ex icted instead, it is not possible, that with 
greater facilities for acquiring laud opening it, greatei- 
encouragement would ba given to tho extension of 
now cultivations? V/o call aUention to the informa- 
tion kindly supplied by Mr. Gordon Brown inano:her 
column. 
Thk RErORT OF Tiin Maur.x.s Board or 
KeVKNUE on tlie prospects of an iron industry 
in Salcni, is of ho hopeful a clianicter, writer 
the Mndnis Mail, tliab it siiouhl not fail lo 
attract attention from those interested in the 
iron trade. '1 he question has been very carefully 
c jnsiderecl— from the manufacturing expert's point 
of view by Mr. Jeremiah Head and Major Mahon, 
and from" the fuel exi)ert'.«i point of view l.y 
Messrs. Popert and Brazier ; wiiile the wiiole 
matter lias been summed up by tlie Board_ of 
Revenue in tiie i>roceedinKs published. The 
conclusion arrived at by the Board is, briefly, 
that it would be possible to deliver ten thousaml 
tons of Salem pitj-iron annually in l.onJon at 
£311-6 per ton, while the value per ton of 
Swedish pij,'-iion delivered at a British port varies 
from £41 to £3-0 !J Furthermore, it is shown 
tliat the Salem product would compete on favour- 
able terms svith hematite iron imported into 
India, tlie average co.st of the latter at Madras 
lein"' £3-3 6, while the avera^'e cost of the former 
woufd be only £2-16-6. 
Grren Teas for Amer(CA.— Those who object 
to the srt^s^stion of the Tea Commissioner 
—see his letter elsewhere— that an attempt 
should be made to capture the " Rieen tea 
trade" of the United States from the Japa- 
nese alleged that success is impossible and 
the 'bnsiiieas not one appertaining to the Ceylon 
planter. Now these critics forget what the 
Cevlon tea planter has already done. He has 
driven out the inferior China teas in the mother 
country and created a taste for a very different 
and far better tea right through the land. 
Moreover the same process with even a greater 
ditfeience is going on in North America wich 
our British-grown or " English breakfast teas 
as the Americans call them. Why then should 
Cevlon and Indian "green teas" not oust the 40 
millions lb. of Japanese it only sufficient care is 
taken ' We learn that Mr. Blechynden who was 
at first opposed to the recommendation, is now 
most heartily with Mr, Mackenzie in this matter 
and that samples ot green tea he submitted from 
an Assam factory to large American buyers, 
received their express approval. This being the 
case, we strongly advise the Ceylon tea planter, 
where favourably placed for the manufacture of 
green teas, to go on at once and conquer this 
new and profitable market.— We must quote in 
an early issue, some instructions as to the 
waking 9f "gwn teas "for local guidance. 
Vanii.la.— We alluded the other tlAT t« Hie 
well-known fact-s that the American market take* 
almost the whole of t'le Mexican beans pro lncod 
an<l that these are of distinctly >^•lllerior cliaracler. 
We have in this article the appeal auce of each 
of the beans met with in commerce dei»cribed — 
Maican, Bouiiion, Seychelles, and bo on. The 
character of the Tahiti bean is only referred to 
in connection with vanillon, a description of beao 
from Guadaloupe, which was ottered at auction 
five weeks ago. We note that the" writer of this 
article says , that tho odour of vanillon is " ttmt 
of lieliolrop •, even sur|>;i-ssing that of the Tahiti 
vanilla." We should l>e inclined to empha>ise the 
fact that the odour of vanillon is totally distinct 
fioni that of the oidinary vanilla Ijeau, even th« 
Tahiti <le»crlption. The consumption of vanilla in 
the Uiiiteu Slates is eiiormoiis. The highest point 
it reached intlielas^ 13 years was in when 
nearly 25(>,OJO lb. wereimported into tiie country. 
Bturlmn beans are improving in appearance. .Mexi- 
can deteriorating. Tlie introilnclion of vaniliin ha« 
not interlered so much as would have been expected 
in the old field enjoyed by vanilla, but Uhh liel|»e<l 
t> extend the' use of this H^vuur ; lOO.OO) ozs. of 
vanillin were u->ed in the L'nited States in 1897. 
— British n,\d (Jolonial iJfUffffist , April 8. 
UmvicOii, for EntkricFevkr.— Inc<jntinnation 
of what has a))peared, from time to time, on the 
above subject, in the local press, the following from 
an Indian contemporary w ill be of interest: — 
•' Medico " writes to and npcountry paper : — " I 
notice with great interest, in your issue of the 16th 
inHtant. yon r reference to the treatnieat of enl(»rij fever 
with olive oil now being carried out at the Station 
Hospital at Meerut. In tho Jyoncel of November 37, 
1897, page 18H.!, there is an article on the value of oliv« 
oil in the treatment of typlioid fevorby Dr. O^ren Pajfet 
of Fermantle, Western Aaetralia, and on reading tfai* 
I was so struck with the excellent results obiatned, 
that I determined lo try it on tbe first ocoasiou which 
came under my notice, but as yet have had no oppjt- 
tnuity I think that medical ofl&cers who have opp irlun- 
ities, as so many h ive now, of tr3'iug any new treat- 
mant, would do well to stady the article inqaestisn. 
Dr. Paget in his article says : — ' It has been my lot to 
attend a large number of patients 8u£fi'riug from 
typhoid fever (well over lOOJ who were placed uodet 
the most disadvantageous circumstances, many of 
them unable to obtain any form of fresh milk, yet my 
percentage of death is nil, and this is the mure remark- 
able seeing that among patients removed to the hos- 
pital where they are properly attended to and receive 
suitable nourishment, the percentage was high as 20 in 
1896 and 11 in 1897, with better accommodation." He 
continues : — ' Now this success I attribute very largely 
to the use of olive oil in this disease.' He eives the 
method of administration in his article, simple in the 
extreme. Typhoid fever is so common in India and its 
death-rate so high in spite of all the latest methods of 
treatment being adopted, that I think from the re- 
markable results recorded in the article in question, 
the simple treatment advocated might, with advantage 
be tried in cases in all hospitals and its results re- 
corded. I ask yon to kindly give publicity to this 
letter in order that medical officers who wish to try the 
above method of treatment may know whereto findi, 
fully explained." Ilio Times of India says : — It may 
interest Surgeon-Major Rennie, who is making en- 
couraging experiments at Meerut to establish the cura- 
tive effect of olive oil in enteric fever, to know that the 
oil in question is in many parts of Spanish America 
considered the only remedy of much use in yellow fever. 
The usual practice is to make a patient drink half a 
pint of olive oil — not always an easy thing to do — and 
then send for a doctor, who, if he is well advised, re- 
peats the dose. The remedy, real or supposed, is well 
known to the captains of merchant vessels trading with 
Havana, the Brazils and Pernambnco. They prescribe 
it for sailors under their charge who may be attacked. 
