Oct. 1, 1898.] TH£: TROPICAL AGRfCULXrHlST. 34S 
"The Indian FoEEsitiR."— Edited by J. S. Gamble, 
>CA. F.L.8., Conservator of Forests, and Ditector of 
the 'Forest School, Dehra Dun, for July has the 
following contents :— Original Articles raid Transla- 
tions. —The Belgian Forest Exhibition and the Forest 
Service ; Equilibrium between ihe crown and the 
root* #{ trees, by F, Oleadow. Correspondenc: — -'n- 
come Tax in England. Offioial Papers and Intelli- 
gence—Estimate of Forest Revenue and Expendi- 
ture for 1888-99 ; Report on some Indian Guma. 
Reviews — Forest Adniiuisfcration Report of the North- 
Westeru Provinces for 1896-97 ; Forest Administration 
Report for Berar for lS9t;-97. Shiiiar and Travel— 
A D.iy on the Beas, by ' X ' ; On the Choice of 
Rifiea for the use of Forest Officers, by ' O. C 
Extracts, Notes and Queries; Timber and Produce 
Trade ; Extracts from Official Gazettes. 
Wantkd a Geologist. — It may be isupposed 
that our oft-repeated call for a Geological Survey 
of tlie island is of recent date. Bnt we first 
put it forward in 1884, and the late Mr. A. M. 
Ferguson in his paper on Plumbago for the Royal 
Asiatic Society in 1885, distinctly pressed the 
matter on public ami official attention. Here is 
one passage from his paper :— 
To set this and other like questions at rest, I 
submit that this Society would do woil to use its 
influence with G'>vernment to induce them to borrow 
an officer, if his services could be spared, from the 
Geological Survey Staff of the Government of India, 
to examine and report, once for all and with authority, 
on the Geology and Mineralogy of our island. 
A Compliment to Planters.— Mr. J. U. 
Rees in his ''Nineteenth (.'entury" papei on 
" Among the Elephants " iu Travancore lias the 
following :— 
How much better ths planter often knows the native 
than the honourable memhi-r who makes speeches 
in the Legislative Coiic.l. and. )>ow nutiue it is to 
represent him as au oppressor 1 I who have known 
innumerable instances of kind tiCMtment vviil here 
mention two, becaue they are amusing. Au old woman 
and a young boy were treated by their emploj'er's wife 
for months for a serious complaint, and finally com- 
pletely recovered their health. They were then 
desired to resume work, when both plaintively asked 
whether it was leally possible that the sahib and his 
wife, after treating them like their own children for 
so long, could intend them to work like coolies 
again ! On tmother occasion an old woman asked htr 
employer for 10 rupees, which she had vowed as an 
offering at the shrine of a neighbouving goddess 
whose festival w.is just then being celebrated. The 
next day she was seen picking weeds as usual, and 
when her master said, 'Why ! I thought you were 
going to mike your offering,' she saii], ' I made it 
over to another cooly who was going.' But, asked 
the master, ' How do you know hs will give it to 
the goddess ?' ' Oh ! ' said she, ' I don't. All I 
know is, I vowed 10 rupees, and I paid 10 rupees ; 
and if the goddess cannot look after the money her- 
self, what can be expected from a poor old woman 
like me?' Of the hundreds of millions of India the 
vast majority are more like the cooly than iha 
smart lawyers, who pretend to represent them and 
their feelings in the Legislative Councils. The 
honourable gentlemen represent a microscopii^al mino- 
rity, and see far less of the masses than the European, 
who, as a planter, a spoitsman, or an official of the 
older school, mixes with the people, talks to them 
in their Ovvn langu.igeri, and recognises the stage of 
development which they have actually reiiched, and 
their real capicity for the ab-;orption cf the benefits 
of highly elaborate and scieuLifis administration. 
Indeed, the busy lawyer of the tjwns sess nothing 
of the people. I venture to s;iy so last yaar during 
the Budg-a: debate in the Viceroy's Council, and 
though tiken to task by Indian friends whose opi- 
nions I respect and value. I will repeat the state- 
ment. The voice of the people does not thus p?ne- 
trate into the Council Chamber, 
Ceylox Tea in America.— More coirespond- 
ence from our indefatigable Commissioner ; 
and lie is hopeful of making a push with 
green teas and so relieving pressure by a few 
million lb. He also shews how Messrs. Finlay, 
Muir & Co. are making way with their " Mon- 
soon tea" — all pure Ceylon — in Canada. But 
very hard is the intelligence he gives us of 
the trouble cause i y the new duty and of an 
American tea house repudiating an order given by 
them, in what striices us as a dishonourable 
way. Along with the letter we have received 
several specimens of attractive advertisements 
and a long list of the newspapers in which it 
was intended to advertise during. July and August : 
Plumbago— now KTi O per ton in Colombo— was, 
in 18.38, valued at K80 per ton. Even in 1873 
the price fell from R'200 a ton a few years be- 
fore to R90, at which price there was no profit 
in digging. The highest jirice ever paid up to 
188.5 for the best Plumbago in the home market 
was £48 per ton. In the palmy days of "the 
)ilumbago mines" of the North of England, the 
blacklead obtained from them was valued at 
30s per lb, or over £3,oOO per ton ! Ceylon plum- 
Vjago is now fre([uently mi.xcd witli Cumberland 
blackle.ad in pencil-making. — Mr. Jacob de Mel 
drew £2,000 a year prolii; for eleven years from 
a Kunmegala pluiiiuago mine. — As a general rule, 
p uiiibago shows itself not far f:oni the -uriace, 
although the superior qualities are got d ep down. 
Tlicse are but a few (mit of a liost of i' terest- 
ing) facts culled from tiie late Mr. A. M. Fer- 
guson's Monograph on our one mineral oi com- 
mercial importance. 
Mr ALEXANDER Whyte has been appointed by 
the Secretary of Statu for Foreign Allairs, Cura 
tor of the Bjta,nic Garden Uganda, aboat to be 
esta'olislied "for the better examination and devel- 
opment of the agricultural resources of the Pro- 
tectorate." Mr AVhyte had previously started 
a similar enterprise in Briiish Central A'rica, 
in v.-liich he was from 1891-7 Hoail of the Scien- 
tific Department. An interesting report of his 
work is given in the Ken- Bulletin for 1895 (pp. 
180 191). He maile an important collection in North 
Myasaland, a coiiitiy which had never been 
previously explored botaiiically. A portion of 
•ihe novelties .vas described in the Kew Bulletin 
ten- last year (pp. 248-300) and a further one is 
Viublisheil in the present number. — Ktin Bulletin 
for J uhf. 
Rubber — Tiic Governor (; j'Brien) and the Fijian 
nthorities under the stimulus of Kew are endea- 
vouring to get the natives to revive rubber 
collecting from difi'erent rubber-producing trees in 
the forest ; but so far the samples sent liome 
are not very satisfactory. Here is the most 
promising: — 
With the ab'jve was enclosed a sample of rubber 
from a tree known as " Baka " Ficiis OUiqua, 
Forest f.). According to Mr. Joske, this " yields 
qaantities of rubber." Fucther, " it; is used by 
the natives of the interior as birdlime with which at 
c rtain seasons of the year they catch wild pigeons; 
it is very easily procured. Incisions are made 
in the bark and undeiaea'di are placed bambojs 
which receive the sip as it pours out. It is coagu- 
lated by the meai:s of hei' ,. . . . ;h-i natives say they 
could get immou.so quaiiti'.iea of this without much 
trouble. Were ;t disooveved that the ru'jber whs of 
commercial va:ue. ii would prove an es im^.ble Doon 
to the nativ.;s of tho-ie isi-.nd'i." altiioush the spe- 
cimens of " B ik i. '■ rubber received at Kew Jiad not 
been sufti.-.iently cojtgi.ilntcd it was regarded by 
Messrs. liecht, Levis and Kahn as suitable for mixing 
purpsses, audit* value today was placed at Is to Is 3d 
p«r pound. 
