236 
THE TROPICAL AGE ICULTU HIST. (Oct. 1, 1898. 
principally from trees growing about the island. 
The Ceara Rubber treta dont appear to yield much 
nice. I tapped one growing at Mbweni and got 
little or nothing from it though it must have been 
fire or six years old. It wa» afterwards found that 
wrong methods had b(3fn adopted, though at the 
same time it was quite clear that there \TftB little 
milk in the tree. Thia variety of Rubber i» said 
to thrive on very barrtn as well as rich soils, knd 
if this is the case, it ouglit to do well ou th« 
coral wastes of Zanzibar, wiiich cover about 3/5 of 
the total area of the island. 
Landolphia Kirlcii.—ln October I went to Pemba 
and investigated the local Rubber Tiuo (Landolphia 
Kirkii) and reported thereon. 
Coffee. — About 60 young Arabian coffee treet are 
grovpirig in the Nursery fi'om seed obtained from 
Nyassaland. They look well and vrill be planted 
out, though they can hardly be excepted to prosper 
in Zanzibar as the elevation is too low. Liburian 
coffoe was sown late in the year and has not yet 
germinated. Attempts have been made to procure 
seed of t,he Mai'a^iojipe coff'!e, BraziiiH!! variety, but 
none has yet been ruceived. 
Anatto. — Anatto grows well here but t'le market 
is too depressed to encourage cultivation. Saedlinge 
are being raised at Bunga for vanilla shade. 
Camphor, Snffljmer, Olives, Sar.iaparilla. — t'amphor, 
Safflower, Olives and SarsapariUa hivj proved un- 
Bucoessfnl, and their cultiv.ition will be discontinued. 
Local Phoducts. 
Cloves. — Some experiments have been made with 
a view to ascertaining whether it were possible to 
produce a sainple of cloves here equal to the best 
Penang and Amboyna. Tlie experiments leave little 
doubt that this can ce accomplished. On the other 
hand if the stems are green — too young — the dried 
cloves will be shrivelled. I'iuk bold heads make 
the best samples. 
The quality of the cloves depends also, though 
to a less extent, upon the drying as well as upon 
the picking. The experiments at Dunga seem to sbo^ 
that the cloves should be submitted to a high tem- 
perature and dried rapidly. I believe that tnoat 
Arabs overdry their cloves. They expose them to 
the sun till they become black and dried up and 
much of tlie oil evaporated. The atom of a properly 
dried clove should be tough and should yield slight- 
ly to the str'in b?fore bre:iking. I think that an 
effactive system of drying cloves under glass could 
be introduced here with little expense. Some au- 
thorities are of opinion that, if all the Zanzibar 
and Pemba cloves were placed upon the ratrketin 
the best possible condi'. ion, the price would not be 
increased beyond what it is likely to reach under 
prevailing conditions; low prices being due to over- 
production. The recent abolition of the legal status 
of slavery will, it is acknowledge, withdraw a lot of 
labour from the Arab sharabas and the yearly yield 
of cloves suffer in consequence. Conquerrent impro- 
vement in the quality ot the product should there- 
fore, if it can be accomplished, tend to lessen the 
effect of a declining crop. The short crop of 1897-98 
is probably due to dry weather quite as much as 
to scarcity of labour, j noticed in October that 
comparatively few cloves remained upon the treea 
in the Pemba plantations, and in this respect Pemba 
compar.'-d very favourable with Zanzibar, where a 
ciunsiderable proportion of the cloves were lef: un- 
picked, Dr Charlesworili reports that the rainfall 
for the second half of i he ye 'r was only 1S'51 inches 
compared with the previous five years' average of 
2i'd'2. This difference practically amounts to » 
drought and is quite enough to explain any eccentri- 
city in the output of cloves. 
Chillies. -About three acres of coral waste have 
been cleared of scrub and planted in chillies. The dry 
■weather has hindered the growth of the plants, bo 
that we have as yo; no results to reports. 
Castor Seeds.— kn enquiry was made in Londott 
as to the market condition of Castor seeds, and samples 
of both the large and small varieties of Castor Seeds 
were, in May, sent home to Messrs. Gray Dawes and 
Co. to be reported upon. On May 8th Mr. Bagb 
Garden wrote as under : — ''From their appearance 
I did not thiuk they were equal to Madras coast seeds 
which are very full of oil, but I hive had then 
rep'jrted uu both lit Marseilles and London. lu Mar- 
bellies eur agent writes that bjta sample* are rerj 
clean sound seed, and they make very little difference 
in value between the large and the iimall. In Loadoa 
they state that moat crushers give the prelerence to 
the large beans although both arc of good quality; the 
difference in favour of the large being about 2s. 6i. per, 
ton. I have made a roguh calculation and make to-day's 
price c.i.f. Lou.lon or .Marseilles about i'9.10 0 per 
ton, without allowing for any excessive admixture 
of none oleagiuouti seed. In London they cbarf;* 
shippers with anything over 3% and in Marseilles 4%. 
To-day's prices however are very high, owing to 
scarcity, and I have known the seed fully £3 per ton 
under the above price." Castor oil trees, though 
they grow wild in Ziuzibir, dont uppear to yield 
much weight of seed. We make a point of collect- 
ing, the seed from all the trees round about Uu iga. 
but as yet Wt3 h ive go . onl v q^iile an iii8i({uiii< »iil 
quantity toge.her. The oil is wortn about £36 a lou ia 
London whi -h compares well with cocoauut oil at £23. 
Papayi. — Enquiries have aleo been m&ue in London 
regarding Papain and the following oommuoi- 
ca'.loa from Mr. Hugh Garden was received iu 
April: — "'I have received the following information 
from one of the first authorities : -The dried price 
of Papaw fruit is a powerfull digestive agent and differs 
from Pepsin in being active in neatral and alkaline 
solutions. The Papain of commerce is prepared from 
it by solution of the crude juice in water, and pre- 
cipitation by alcbohol. Only small quantities of the 
crude concentrated juica have hitherto reached this 
country, and therefore the price at which it has 
been sold has only bean a nominal value. So far 
as my observation goes, and the matter has been 
the subject of considerable experiment by my son 
the substance is not likely to come into extensire 
use, and I should think that the import would hardly 
be worth consideration by you.'" Messrs. Thomas 
Christy and Co., of 2.3 Line Street were good enough 
to send out a sample of the dried juice with the 
following : — '• In reply to your query regarding Papaw 
we may tell you that we import the dry juice sf 
this piant in large quantities. We believe ths way 
of drying it is to plaoe the j'lice upon slabs of glass 
or earthenware so that it h.as a smooth surface to 
dry upon. This is exposed till it is throughly dry 
and the ti'm then flakes off The price we 
could pay for the dry juice would be aboat 5s. to Ts. 6d. 
per lb We understand that the juice is 
taken from all parts of the plant, principally from 
the stem or trunk of tne tree; if you take it from 
the fruit you will have to be careful to make your 
iucissions in the latter just before the fruit is ripe. 
You need onl3- make scratches as the juice is found 
beeweeu the skin and the pulp. None is obtainable 
from the fruit proper. We hardly think it worth 
your while to take any trouble with this part of 
the plaat. Out of many fruits you will only be able 
to obtain but a few ounces, whereas, from the trunk 
of the tree and other parts of the plant, you can 
obtain several pound." 
A Crisis in the Indian Tea Industry.— 
"Any one at all conver.=ant with the subject saya 
the Planters Gazette — knows that the Indian 
Tea Industry is at the presetit moment passing 
tlnongli the most critical sta2;e ot its existence" ; 
and elsewhere our contemporary adds: — "It is 
useless dallying with the subject, and the ."sooner 
jiroprietor.s realise that they are manufacturing an 
article ii.i-;aleable under present conditions in in- 
creasing quantites, the better. To our mind the 
apathy of shareholders is inexplicable. Producers 
all over the world have shown a determination to 
get rid of the middlemen, and why should the 
British tea-grower foster them 2 " 
