'?mEi TROPICAL AGRIOULTUEIOT, CDtefe. l, 1903. 
quite exceptional. Cannot oar local scientists — 
especially those connected with the Royal Botanic 
Gardens — supply us with analyses of Colombo 
and Kandy rain-water from time to time— taken 
after a drought and during rainy weather, and 
compare them with the analyses of rain from 
different country districts ? But what does 
H.M.M. mean by a 3 inch fall of rain in London 
giving " 22 gallons of water per acre per inch ? 
Surely there is some mistake in the figures — 
22,C0O ? Then, four sentences lower down, what is 
meant by the red earth helping the atmosphere ? 
How is it done ? GOIYA. 
Dear Sib,— You nsed not bother about the 
manurial value of rain. This we have 
already got some 20 odd years ago. The 
respective districts got the rain analysed and 
,the results are to be found in the records 
of the P. A. It would be of much interest 
if those records were to be published now. 
Mr. Giles Walker, I am sure, can put his 
thximb on the day and date he got the Dkoya 
rain 
ANALYSED. 
Dear Sib, — "Goiya," in your columns, is 
rather out when he says that it was his 
belief that the manurial value of rain water 
lay in the electricity it contained. The 
passage of electricity, through the atmosphere 
during a thunderstorm, converts the nitrogen 
of the atmosphere into ammonia. Rain, in 
its passage through the air, washes out all 
the impurities ic contains — both gaseous 
or solid — in the form of very fine particles 
of dust. These impurities are often of much 
manurial value. It, therefore, stands to 
reason that the rain-water, after a period 
of drought, is more beneficial to vegetation 
than the rain that falls AFTERWARDS. 
t^: 
NEED FOR LIBERAL CULTIVATION. 
Wattegama, 
Dear Sib,— I have seen in the Ceylon 
Observer 'Howls from the Hills,' signed 
» Jackal ' with an artistic sketch of a jackal 
below the signature. Mr. Storey has ably 
defended Mr. Westland, and the latter ought 
to have every planter's sympathy and not 
be howled at. From ' Jackal's ' description 
of how Mr. Anderson pulled down Mr. West- 
land at the last Matale P. A. meeting and the 
artistic sketch of the animal, I can easily 
unearth the "Jackal.' 'Jackal' could easily 
have noticed the P.D. misprinted; 'pound 
the cacao trunk,' should have been cacao husk 
(printer's error) when he read on. See Mr. 
Cochran's analysis of the cacao husk. 
My object is to impress on proprietors 
the cultivation of their estates from the 
beginning, not to take otxt all they can get 
from the very start and then sell their estates 
for a song, examples— Delgolle, Neeloola, 
Sunnyside, &c.' The new proprietors full well 
know that there is money to be made from 
these estates under a more liberal treatment, 
just as I have worked up abandoned coffee 
^estates successfully with tea, cacao, &c. I 
'have given proof in the past of what I can do, 
99 treat the would be critics with contempt. 
I had Professor Preuss, of Berlin and German 
East Africa, here accompanied by an Assistant 
of the Peradeniya Gardens and took them all 
over the estate on Friday last. They ex- 
pressed themselves as highly pleased with all 
they saw. 1 also showed them two cacao pods, 
5 pounds each (sic), and the tree from which 
they were plucked, with more such unripe 
pods on the tre?s ; also all kinds ot fruit 
trees all over the estate. I now send you the 
two pods by train plucked on Wednesday 
last for your inspection, &c. As I wish to 
plant out the seed on a new clearing, I will 
thank you to send the pods back within ten 
days. 
As regards rubber, I had ceara rubber at one 
time, but could not make it pay ; so when para 
rubber came to the front I asked my son, F., 
to make that plant one of his specialities. 
Time has proved his success in tapping and 
curing on Kepitigalla estate. 
Where did our first coffee, cinchona, cacao 
and tea plants come from ? Bctio answers : 
'From the jungle.' What did they live on? 
Echo : ' the decay of all leaves, twigs and fruit 
around the tree.' But you usually find in 
these forests that there is a large variety of 
trees in the jungle, so fruit trees, are less 
exposed to one kind of insects. Again 
some insects and birds destroy other 
insects. Then there are also wild animals in 
the jungles who eat the grass, fallen 
fruit, and some who turn up the soil to 
look for worms &c. , a proof that vegetable 
Tnanure, decayed or green, weeds, leaves and 
fruit are all that is required for truit-bearing 
trees in the jungle. Unless you wish to force 
the trees on estates to give more crop by 
using artifical manures, the latter mixed with 
decayed cattle or vegetable compost is ' no 
doubt a great help to the trees. — Yours faith- 
fully, JOSEPH HOLLO WAY. 
RAMIE FIBRE FOR GAS MANTLES. 
Colombo. 
Dear Sir,— It may interest you to learn 
that " ramie fibre " is now being largely 
used as the basis of Incandescent Mantles 
in place of cotton, as the para on page 
16 of the "Journal of Gas Lighting "—sent 
herewith— will show. In this direction alone, 
the sale of ramie will be considerable, seeing 
that incandescent lighting is ever on the 
increase and that there are in London alone, 
a dozen large factories engaged in the 
manufacture of mantles. — Yours faithfully, 
W. W. TOWNSEND, 
Acting Manager, Colombo Gas & Water Co. 
{Cutting.) 
It is suggested that, if there is a corner in 
anything in the incandescent trade in the n*ar 
future, it will spring out of ramie. The demand 
for ramie mantles has grown enormously of late ; 
and most large buyers are specifying ramie 
mantles in their orders. The price of the material 
has risen ; but ramie is not such a necessity that 
a corner in it could not be met by large purchasers 
boycotting it (by using cotton mantles) for _« 
sufficient time to break down any attempt in 
that direction, ..'njviti! 
