48C 
THE TROriCAL AGRICULTURIST. 
■Jan. 2, 1899. 
LinURlAV Coffee (writes a Siimalra planter) 
after standiiif,' foi a lonj; liiiie at i5l7 in Sin^'apoie 
(per picul) has l>y slow de^'iiees ^ot up so far as ^21 ; 
but Singapore is no niarlcctfor J.,il)enaii— nor is Lon- 
don. Havre, Hamburg and A-nsterdani all i)av 
better prices than JiOndon— and from what I have 
heard, I believe Trieste wonlii be well '.vorlh a trial." 
Spanish Chestnut.— ^V■ith leferencc lo the 
cutting from the I'lantrr, of l.jtii October, re 
Spanish Chestnut, I (jnite a^'ree with the re- 
marks made therein : — 
The Spanish Chestnut. This is a fine ornamental 
tree, and it is pietty well known llris wiy that a, 
recently retired dijtiiignished member of the Indian 
Government waxed enthusiastic about it, and its 
fruits, or rather nuts, as a valuable famine food ; 
but Portugal and Spain are not India, and even up 
here where the nut should keep if any^-.here, it 
rapidly deteriorates, and the plains such as the Dan, 
where it has been introduced it is bad and mele3s)in 
a very short period, and is just about as bkely to 
become a famine food as apples, to say nothing of 
the intoleralile time of waiting before the trees lome 
into bearing. Fiom a commercial or economic stand- 
point this European nut in India must bs written 
off as a failure. D.ujiling planteis have a climate 
and elevation that woul l ^raw the Spanisli chestnut 
well, and an isolated plant put in hero and there, 
ttpart from a few seers of nu'.s for home consumption, 
TTOuld fonn fine, atti active and very distinct objects 
in a few years. 
We have a couple of plants here and though 
fairly liealthy they do not make much headwuy 
and it will be a very long time before llwy are 
lit tor bearing. — Co?'. 
TllK IJahama.S. — (Jovernor Sir (iilbert Caitcr 
has sent a very interesting report on t:ie Hahamas 
to the Colonial Oihce. The present population 
of the group exceeds .^2,00■), the coloured inhabit- 
ants outnumbering the whites in the proportion 
of six to one. The sponge industry continues to 
flourish, and the cultivation of sisal or Bahamas 
hemp is reviving after a 'threatened collapse. The 
price of sisal libre has advanced very consider- 
ably, a fre-sli impetus has been givtn to the in- 
dustry, and, while the sanguine anticipations once 
entertained will have to be niodilied. there is 
good ground for the belief that the colony will 
ultimately benelit. largely from the cultivation 
and manufacture of sisal. The orange growers 
have done well, and the opinion is expressed that 
"if the hundreds of young Englishmen who have 
had such disastrous experiences with orange gro\ es 
in Florida had made their experiments in the 
Baha '^as, their fate would have been very diller- 
ent." A new source of prolit for the Bahamas 
has been tappeil by the exportation to the mar- 
kets of Kew York of ovsr 600,000 grape fruit 
The fruit, sometimes called the poniela or " for- 
bidden fruit," has suddenly sprung into great 
popularity in the United States. Its bitter-sweet 
flavor is very refreshing, and the juice is consi- 
dered to have a remarkably good effect on the 
digestive organs. Five millions of )ii .eapples 
were also exported to the United States, four- 
fifths going to the canning factories at Baltimore. 
The salt industry of the IJahamas has received 
a severe blow by the heavy protective duty now 
imposed by the United States' tariff. Turtles 
abound in the shallow se:is aro\ind the Bahamas, 
and it is believed that an enterprise for the jire- 
naration of a concentrated form of turtle soup, 
such as has recently been established in Jamaica, 
would prove a profitable undertaking. The re- 
port concludes by describing the general condi- 
tion of the colony as flourishing, a very material 
improvement having' taken place during the past 
|jve years. — Daily Chronicle, Oct. 5. 
Mo.SQL'noi;s.— Throw a bit of Aliim, about the 
si/.<i of a marble, into a bmail bowl uf v«at«ri 
and wl the ii:ind« ami face and any exposed 
jiarts lightly with it. Not a nios(|uito will a^>- 
proach vou. They iium about a little and dis- 
appear. — Zanzibar Guzettf, Nov. 16. 
What Tea Costs.— Says the Indian Plan- 
trrf' Gazette : — our reason for quoting Lite 
figures of the British India Company is because, 
so far as we know, it is the mosi cheaply man- 
aged Company whose accounts we have cotue 
across, its properties are divided between '"acliar 
and Assam, and it is a fair average property. 
It is outside our purpose here to quote all the 
figures, the following extract will fcuttice for 
our purpose : — 
per lb. 
Gross proceeds of tea sold 
£23,985 0 
1 
- 7 11 
Ijcss Expenditure — 
Total Indian including English 
Btores 
£20,417 18 
2 
- 7 K2 
Lees Equation of Exchange . . 
£10,119 7 
5 
= 300 
£1G,2C8 10 
9 
= 4 82 
Freight, Dock Does, lusnrance 
Agency 
£14,889 7 
11 
- 1 45 
Totnl Expendltnre 
£21,157 18 
8 
- « 27 
Couimiisioa to Garden Manaf^ers 
141 7 
0 
0 04 
Grand Total under nil hands .. 
£21,299 5 
8 
6 31 
Profit 
£ 2 CHa 14 
=-OaO 
£2.S,9a5 0 
1 
= 7 11 
Now to dedi.ct from above a six penny tea, leaves 
a loss of -31 of a pennj' behind it. If this 
Company's gardens are not the most cheaply 
worked we know of they are amongst those, and 
th(! cost of production locally is c'ose on 5d, < r 
As. per i)ound. There is no earthly u>e in 
putting forward imaginary figures, and going on 
cilculating profits, when vone exist. Each gar- 
den Manager knows best what style of plucking 
pays best on hi-* own estate. .Any attempt to 
eiiucate nu-n as to the relative merits of line or 
coarse plucking, an<l showing a pro/it where tioiie 
exist, is doing more harm than good." 
I iiK Ivory Trade.— The greater part of the 
ivory imported into Kuro|)e comes from difTerent 
regions of Africa ; British India and Ceylon 
furnish a compamtively small (|uaniiiy. Afiica, 
according to the Moniteur Offidel dii Commerce, 
contrib\ites about 1,764,000 pounds of ivory 
annually distributed among the difl'erent centres 
of exportation as follows: From Zanzibar, 
441,000 pounds ; Mozambique, 221,000; Uaboon, 
t'ameroons, Lagos, 165,0tj0 ; Niger Territories, 
16G,OC0 ; I.oanda, Benguela, 221,000 ; Ca])e 
Colony, 110,000. The principal markets for 
ivory are London, Liverpool, and Antweip. 
Hamburg also carries on an important trcde, 
but a gieat jiart of it has fiist passed through 
the London market. Of the work imported at 
Antwerp, the larger part is from the Congo 
Free State. As regards the uses to which ivory 
is put. Franc, England, Germany, ami the 
L^nited States manufacture the four principal 
articles in ivory, viz., billiard balls, piano keys, 
comb and knife handles ; in addition France makes 
a s|)ecialty of brushes, fancy articles, handle.*, 
of nmbiella anil carved goods. Spain manufactures 
a considerable quantity of billiard balls; Italy 
and Turkey, combs ; Austria, billiard balls and 
keys ; Holland, a very few barlls, and Belgium 
some fancy and carved p^ooiis. —Journal of the 
Society of A rt. 
