THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [Sept. 1, 1903. 
ee'covec the coat of such removal or destruction from 
the defaulter.in^lany civil court having'jariadiotion jn 
the matter. 
: .7. All Officers of the land department and; the 
.jpistriot Officer and hia assistants and any auch other 
o^Qcer as aforesaid shall have access at all reasonable 
fimes into and upon any land whereon any coconut 
tree is growing for the purpose of inspecting such 
tree and also into and upon any land or premises 
where there ia reason to soppoae that there are kept 
any such things as.in the last preceding section are 
referred to. 
Description of Beetles. 
1. Oryoted rhinoceros or black beetle. 
2. Bhynohophoroua ferruginous or red beetle. 
ODDS AND ENDS. 
{By Cosmopolite.) 
The accounb^of the Senior Editor's 
TRIP THROUGH DIMBULA 
Sya9. exceedingly pleasant reading, especially to 
one who has known the districb since it was 
clothed with primeval jangle, and Jias witnessed 
the flactuationsj of lis career, up and down and 
up ag ain. When 1 first roda through Cameton's 
land along with the late Mr. Russell Drummond, 
in 1865, 1 made the remark to him, that it was 
the finest jaaole I had, yet seen. in Ceylon; to 
\Hrhich he replied that I could get" it all for £1 
aa acre if I liked. I was ^dissuaded from going 
in for it, at the price; by one or two of the V.A's. 
of the period, who laughed the idea to scorn, 
saying that it was tar too high for coffee, which, 
of course, was King at that time, and no one 
took any thought of tea as a product with which 
to earn some honest rupees. I, no doubt, missed 
a good chance of acquiring wealth; but, with the 
knowledge I have since acquired of the nature of 
the coffee bush, I am ready to confess that I 
now quite agree with those V.A's. and their 
opinions, for laud as high as that referred to 
never proved a gigantic success as a coffee cotum. 
Your Dimbula trip was grand, but now 
away to my old diggings and tell us how Ran- 
gala and its " Boys " are looking. I wish I could 
take a run out and go over the old district for 
myself, and see what changes have been effected 
by Queen Tea since I left King Coffee fighting 
gamely but unsuccessfully. ° 
Without exception the finest sheet of coffee I 
ever saw in my life, and the heaviest crop I 
ever saw on che bushes, was on 
MORATENNA ESTATE IN KURUNEQALA, 
which, at the time I speak of, belonged to old 
Tim MacOartney, the head of the Police Depart- 
ment, but which now, I daresay, has gone back 
to its native state of abandonment.* When plant- 
ers used to "blow" about having one ton an 
acre on ceirtain of their fields, I never contradicted 
them, as I knew that the thing was quite possible 
after having seen that crop on Morateuaa listate, 
although, for my own part, I never suoeseded 
in picking more than ten hundred weights an 
acre. This, however, will be of no interest to 
your readers, who have, one and all, been inoccu- 
lated with the tea bacillus, and wlxo, at this 
_ • Moratenna is still a valuable propertv,'!^^ 
ihg-to Kurflnegala EsDate Company, planted chieflv 
in cacao and some tea — -Ed. 2".^. ' 
period of the island's history, care naught for 
coffee and its value in the Lane. 
In the Tropical Agriculturist of June, I find 
a paragraph on the subject of 
DISHORNING CATTLE, 
and recommending those going to adopt this 
plan of preventing cattle from goring each other 
in trucks or sheds, to burn the horn bud out, 
with caustic potash, when the calf is quite young. 
Here we have history repeating itself with a 
vengeance, for, in June 1898, I myself in these 
notes, reeommanded this plan, which, in my 
opinion, is undoubtedly the best ; my information 
got copied by Home and Colonial papers, till now 
the paragraph, after running its course for a year 
or two, has found its way back to Ceylon and 
been recopied into the paper in which it originally 
appeared. Some time ago, an article from my pen, 
which had appeared in one of our agricultural 
papers, was copied into an American one, and 
from that was taken over by a New Zealand 
paper. But, alas I in the latter the paragraph 
began thus : — "A Dakota farmer writes as fol- 
lows, &c,, c&c." Now, I have never been in 
Dakota, and have no wish to go there, so why 
the Editor of the New Zealand paper should have 
dubbed me a Dakota farmer, when the American 
paper distinctly acknowledged the paragraph as 
having been taken from a Scotch paper, is " one 
of those things that no fellow can understand." 
[Oar friend relates a common experience in 
literary and especially editorial life : we have 
often been attracted by an extract in an exchange 
paper, unacknowledgedj and thought how 
curiously sensible and like our own sentiments 
those expressed here, were — only to find later that 
the writing was our own after going round the 
world, through several reprints !— Ed, T.A.] 
CITRONELLA OIL. 
[The following is a reply in the Chemist and 
Druggist of July 18th. to a previous letter in 
regard to citronella oil] : — 
Sir, — We have read with great interest Messrs. Parry 
and Bennett's reply to our letter of March 25th. Are 
we to understand that the resin-spirit mentioned has 
been exported to Oeylon ? We have made inquiries 
from the Ijooal authorities, who state that they are not 
aware that any such article haa been imported, but 
that if any has been it has been entered under the 
heading of "Chemists' suadriea," and cannot therefore 
be traced. Onr statement that it has been an open 
secret for some time past that gross adulteration was 
being practised was only intended to apply locally, Xhe 
views expressed by Mr J C Umney in hia letter to the 
London Chamber of Commerce, as summarised by him 
in his letter appearing immediately above that to which 
we are replying, embodies many of the reasons why 
we do not consider the publication of our methods of 
testing broadcast to the trade to be in our iatereata. 
The estimations of the aoetyliaable constituents, or 
the suggested equivalent of 60 per cent, geraniol, 
cannot we think, be put into practical use as a test 
where the native trader or distiller expects the 
European exporter to examine his produce and either 
accept or reject it at once. Many natives bring in but 
very small quantities of oil for sale, and, where time ig 
of importance, local conditions render it impossible 
to call in the aid of the Government analyst ; and it 
is out here, at the root of the induFtry, that the oil 
must necessarily be ficat tested to ascer- 
tain its degree of purity ; the anbaequeut examination 
