THE tROHCAL AGEICULTURI8T. [ArcuftT I, \m. 
tbis word .idl will not be applied to coolie trans- 
actions. At present, being a slxtrt and fore. tile 
word, it conies handy if you are in any way dis- 
pleased with coolie emifjration. So far I am not 
aware that any one lias attempted to disparage 
the term, but it mii^lit be well to do so. 
I have wandered from the main point, which is 
to get at some form of 
COOLIE ASSURANCE 
without charging thewhole amount to the planters, 
and I forgot to suggest that the coolie him- 
self should be taxed. Let us consiJer the taxes 
which he gets free of by becoming a tea coolie. 
At liome he is taxed for chowkiilars, for land, 
for and by the police, for village jioojas and 
customs, for leave to cut wood and grasx, and 
when he flourishes in the tea gardens he is ex- 
empt from all but the liquor tax. The cooly is 
tlie direct cause of much wealth, a jiart of this 
should be put aside ))y all who benelil, to form 
a fund for supporting and re patriating the 
failures.- P<OHce>', June 10. 
COFFEK NOTES, 
A London telegram of the 13th -June says ti e 
Cofl'ee market at Havre has become much tirmer 
owing to advices of frosts in the State of Sao 
Paulo, notwithstanding tlie circumstance that Van 
Leckwyck, of Antwerp, has declared that frosts 
will considerably increu.se the present crop and 
also the next. 
The New York Journal of Commerce of April 
20 says, in its Washington telegram regArding 
the proposed new war taxes :— 
" There has been some opposition to the pro- 
posed duty of three cents per pound upon cofTee, 
and several members have e.x[)res8ed a desire to 
find some other article which would yield an 
equal revenue with equal facility. These efforts 
have not been successful, and the duty on coffee 
will probably be imposed," 
—It is a curious fact that the protectionists 
of the United States are ready and willing to 
impose any kind of a tax, no matter how un- 
certain or unjust it may be, rather than lery 
import duties' on coffee. No other article would 
yield so large a revenue, at so slight an expense 
as coffee, but as it cuts into the theory of pro- 
tection it must not be levied. It shows how 
narrow and selfish are the views of a class w hich 
is living ujion organized monopolies and main- 
taining them by fal.se theories of their value to 
tlie public— .Rio paper. 
♦ 
THE USES OF FLOUR IN CHINA. 
Although rice is generally regarded by the 
Chinese as the staff of life, a large quantity of 
wheat has been used from the most ancient times, 
and in the earliest classifications, wheat is men- 
tioned as one of the five grains. In the northern 
provinces, where rice is not grown, and can only be 
purchased by the well-to-do, wheat is the most 
common cereal, but it is of very poor quality. The 
wheat is ground by a very primitive process. The 
mill consists of two large stones which are turned by 
tiie aid of a blindfolded mule. The Hour is coarse 
and daijk, chiefly used in the form of vermicelli, 
and when steamed, makes a good substitute for 
rice, and when mixed with a little broth, flavoured 
with a dash of soy, it forms a very savoury dish. 
To use the Chinese term, they are the " suspended " 
-and tlie " dropped ; " the former is the true vermi- 
celli, the manufacture of which is a comtuon sight 
in many northern villaees, wheie i-trings of the 
paste, fastened at the ends of two light eticks, arc 
suspended before the doors of the cottages even in 
the main Ktreels. 
THE CHOPPED VKBMICKIXI 
is made by rolling out the doiigli and cutting it into 
thin strips with a knife fastened to I he boaid like a 
straw chopper. The United Stat«s Coni-ul-General 
at Shanghai says that wheat tiour is also used for 
making rolls which are lightened with leaven, and 
these are -.-ooked by steiiming, as are the many 
varieties of patties containing niince<l meat, 
molasses, or a kind of jam. The Kt«amer consii-ts 
of sieves, lilting tightly one upon another, which 
are covered and placed over the kettle in which tl.e 
meat or other food is Iteing c<xike<l. The uidinary 
Chinese, whether in city or village, takes his break- 
fast at the toa-house or restaurant. It consists 
almost entirely of these meat rolls or patties; the 
latter are dip|)ed in vinegar, soy, or a solution of 
red pepper when eaten. Sometimes the steamed 
lolls, after they have grown old, are made palatable 
by being toasted on a grill over a charcoal lire. 
Another popular dish is dough nut fried in oil. 
Baking is almost eeitirely unknown, but theie is a 
cake of the size and shape of an ox rib w hieh is 
baked by being struck on the inside of a jar shaped 
furnace on which there is a hot charcoal lire. These 
cakes are sometimes circular, but in every case they 
are covered with the seeds of the sesame which add 
very much to the Havour. Another variety is a 
large round cake cooked on a griddle, and which is 
divided into quarters when ottered for sale. The 
Mohammedan Chinese make a similar cake, of 
which they are very fond, without usinc any pork 
fat. For the better quality of native pastry and 
confectionery, rice Hour is usetl, but at the treaty 
ports and the cities to which foreign inttuence has 
extended many forms of sweet cake and biscuit are 
inade of American ^owT.—Jountnl of the Society 
oj ArtH. 
A HINT ON MANURING. 
All plants are composed u( thirteen or fonrteen 
simple bodies, but it is oaly necessary for the farmer 
to concern himself about the restitution of three 
or possibly four of th.^m to bis soil. These elements 
are nitrogen, pboephorus, potash and lime. The three 
former of these are the chief ingredients of plant food, 
and should any one of tliem be deficient in tbe soil, 
it is absolutely necessary that it should be supplied, 
otherwise the remaiuing elements are inert and 
useless, and a good crop cannot possibly be expected. 
Some may say — " that is all very well, but as we 
farmers are not chemists, and time is too valuable 
to spend in experiment we would ask — is there not 
some way to diagnose the conditions of plant 
growth, so that we may know what elements of 
plant food are wanting in the soil, as well as those 
which predominate " ? It is true that farmers are 
not usually chemists, but they can more easily find 
out the deficiencies of their soil than any chemiit 
can. The chemistry of the field is more beneficial 
to the farmer than that of the laboratory. A soil 
analysis gives ouly what the soil contains at the 
moment of examination, and not the quantity in 
which these constituents may be available to the 
plant in assimilable form during the period of 
growth. 
"While there are elements, besides those particu- 
larised above, essential to vegetable growth in our 
soils, it is needless for the tiller of th i soi' to con- 
cern himself iu the least degree about ihem, as 
every soil contains a supply siitJicieut to last practi- 
cally for ever. Sometimes it may happen that a 
soil may contain {plenty of nitrogen, phosphoric aci<f 
