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THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [April 1, 1904. 
MR. JAMES PINNOCK ON EAST AFEICA 
AND UGANDA. 
"My opinion is that; this is a grand, a magni- 
ficent) country," said Mr. James Pinnock, after a 
tour blirough East Africa and Uganda. ' You are 
in your infancy yet,' he continued, ' but you have 
a great future before you. Fifty years ago I was 
in Australia, when land was cheap enough. Today 
in Melbourne land is sold by the foot, and 
realises almost Lombard Street prices. You are 
row beginning, and you have the advantage of 
some of the finest fertile soil to be found in the 
world. Coffee you can grow to perfection, you 
are sure of rubber in your forests, and rubber is 
always in demand. The peanut is a valuable 
commodity, and although at present the freightage 
is fearful, there is no earthly reason why thousands 
of tons should not be exported, in which case the 
freightage would of course be reduced. 
*' Your town lots will be worth ten times the 
money shortly. This is one of the finest ports on 
the East Coast, and it taps the whole of Eastern 
Central Africa. You have a large cattle country 
of many hundreds of thousands of acres of suitable 
land. Look at your deer and zebras— they are 
simply rolling in fat. 
" Bub you haven't commencedjto grow yet. You 
are in your swaddling clothes at present, I want 
to see mills erected for crushing,ground nuts and 
copra. You might say ' why not ship I he raw 
products home and get them treated scientifically 
there ? ' The answer is ' because the freight kills. 
Moreover, in times of drought your refuse comes 
in very useful to feed the cattle. 
"Then again this must be a great cotton growing 
country. The cotton will suit the country, bub the 
seed must be the best Egyptian. With rubber in 
the forest, the cotton country unlimited and cheap 
labour, and the reduced freights which must 
follow the production in quantities, you are bond 
to succeed, and to make a great country of this. 
Of course I am not foolish enough to think this 
can be done immediately. lb will take 
time, but it will come about. The export 
duties on produce are cruelly exorbitant and 
must be set right, otherwise it is bound to retard 
the great agricultural development of the country. 
You have the most salubrious climate in the 
world. In all new countries one meets with more 
or less fevers and sickness until the ground has 
been turned over several times and properly 
drained. There is the terrible scourge of sleeping 
sickness, but we shall find an antidote for that. If 
you weigh the chances of sickness in this country 
against the phthisis, influenza, pneumonia, and the 
hundred and one other complaints prevalent at 
Home, you will find the balance very much in 
your favor." — African Standard, 
COTTON-GROWING IN CEYLON. 
In the course of a paper on " Ceylon from 1896 
to 1903," read before a crowded meeting of mem- 
bers of the Royal Colonial Institute and friends 
on Tuesday evening. Sir West Ridgeway in the 
chair, Mr J Ferguson, C M G, who speaks with the 
authority of an old resident said : — " The Nor- 
thern Railway right through North Central and 
Northern Ceylon for 198 miles will be finished 
next year and will have a continuous chain of 
restored irrigation tanks, and channels close by 
the line. Our hnpe is that a new industry in the 
cultivation of cotton will be established in the 
North-Central Territory, and the Ceylon Govern 
ment has very wisely established an experimenta 
plantation. English capitalists, as well as al 
interested in the development of our Crown Colo- 
nies and in cotton growing, should have their 
attention specially drawn to the great advantages 
appertaining to investment in this part of Ceylon 
as compared even with the Sudan or parts of East 
or West Africa. For, apart from easy railway 
transport and a comparatively good climate — 
bound to improve every year with cultivation — 
there are the surplus millions of India to draw on 
for labour. True, coolies from the eld Southern 
India districts have not been so ready to emigrate 
of recent years as the Ceylon planters could wish, 
but, for a big industry in cotton, a special class of 
cotton cultivators might be drawn from the Deccan 
or some other cotton-growing district, more 
especially if the inducement of gradually securing 
laud for themselves was offered. There is also 
room for growing fibre-yielding plants — ramie or 
rhea especially — as well as tobacco, cacao, and 
perhaps sugar, and some are sanguine that stock- 
raising could be made profitable in our North- 
Central regions." — London Times. 
PINEAPPLE PEESEKVATION IN CEYLON. 
A FIRST SPECIMEN. 
M. Landau, the Swiss tea merchant who 
buys in Colombo for the Turkish tea 
market, and brother of M. Landau of the 
Straits who has done so much in pineapple 
preservation, has himself turned his attention 
to preserving pines, and has presented ua 
with one of his first sample tins. He has 
put up temporary plant, both for handling 
the pineapples and making the tins, at his 
residence, pending further developments. 
Hevtvill not suffer for want of a continuous 
supply of pineapples as the local supply, 
he finds, has generally been greater than the 
demand and he has had promises of large 
continuous deliveries of pines on contract. At 
present the cost of the tins is too high for 
his purpose, as he has to pay R20 for what 
would cost R12 at the Straits and even less 
if imported wholesale. Pineapple growers 
will be glad to hear of the commencement 
of this new industry; at least one Colombo 
gentleman, who had a fev? acres under pine« 
apples, has given the fruit away to his friends 
for want of a sufficiently remunerative 
market. For the present M. Landau thinks 
he will not need to supply more than the 
local market with what he preserves, as 
soon as turned out. 
♦ 
COLONIAL-GROWN COTTON. 
RECENT VISITOR TO CEYLON TO REPORT ON 
SOUTHERN NIGERIA. 
There left Liverpool, on Saturday, by the steamer 
"Orou" the forerunneru of an expedition which is being 
sent oat by the British Cotton Growing Association in 
conjunction with the Colonial Government to Southern 
Nigeria. Mr P Hitohen, of the Colonial Forestry De- 
partment of West Africa, curtailed his leave of absence 
by four months in order to accompany Jlr Freeman, a 
botanical and soil expert whose services have been lent 
by the Imperial Institute at the request of the Oolonial 
Office, on a visit to lands in Southern Nigeria in order 
to report on the sections found most favourable for 
the cultivation of cotton. Mr Eitcheu has already 
