Oct, 1, 1901.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
days— it will require 50 acres to produce sufficient 
fibre for one Eispador's work in one year, five Kas- 
padores for 250 acres, 20 for 1,000 acres. 
But what sti ikes me more is thut I noticed that on 
all the sugar plautations, all the cacao estates, everj- 
■where on Ciown lauds, there is a If'ige extent of 
useless land, when not fiiSt class. Well, the _ fibre 
plants grow nearly everywhere except on absolutely 
barren Unde. And immediately every cue c^n foresee 
what is the future of Trinidad when a. i Ij.nrls, unless 
barren, will be cult vateo wi h piant^i yi=loMig double 
what cacao gives. 1,000 acres of ia id fo- sugar canes 
givirig 1,500 tons of su^ar, wiil require (if I do not 
make a mistake) £37,000 worth of machinery, at least : 
and 1,000 acres of land for fibre plants will require only 
20 Rasnadores costing £600, and will give yearly ,^at$oO 
or£lO per acre, £1C,000 sterling to repay cost of land 
and of contiaots. 
But no industry can be established with safety if 
it is not starte(^ with economy and perseverance or if 
any one is discouraged because purchasers do not come 
from abioad to buy the first pound before it is ready. 
I believe that this, and five or six years' gambling 
in the London Exsbaoge, have stopped the firbt 
attempt made in Tobago and in the Bahamas some ten 
years ago. But the machines have been greatly 
improved during the last four years, th" prices after 
fluctuating during ihe time of speculation between 
£1S and £75 have become steady at £30, and the 
plants, ten years old now, are everywhere giving 
sprouts from their roots, and seeds from .heir poles, 
The Agricultural Society is b ing culled upon to 
decide regarding th ir: tvodnotioD of har<i-working 
immigrants from Tenetiffe. Can we find a better 
basis for settlement by tree oonipauies of these free 
people, in a free country ? Profitable contracts could 
be ofiered to them on landing at the Quay at a rale 
of $25 an tcre, five after brushing, $5 after planting, 
|15 on delivery on fourth year. Each contractor 
■would not receive more than 12 acres to be planted 
in three yeiirs— four acres a year. As there is very 
little trouble io cultivating the fibre plant when it 
is a year and a lialf old, every year each contractor 
could receive some fonr acres more. In five years 
he Would have planted 20 acres and from the fourth 
to the ninth year he would receive $5tiO, whereas 
12 acres in cacao, or 2,400 trees, would give him 
only $480 in the same lime. 
Pori-of Sp«in, llih July 1901. _ 
— Journal Oi the Jaiiiaica agricultural Society. 
"NEGRO NILBLAND AND UGANDA" 
Form the subject of an instructive paper 
(with map) in the latest Quarterly Review, and 
the strong hope is expressed that, by the 
wealth of its products -md the 'uart ottered 
for trade, this land of the greatest lake and 
the greatest river in Africa will soon justify 
its being brought under the British s{ here 
of influence. Reference is made to the recent 
discovery by the head of the Scientific De- 
partment of the Uganda Protectorate (Mr. 
Alex. Whyte, so well-known in Ceylon, and 
who has surely taken a new lease of life 
since he went to East Africa) of the "potto 
lemur," and although " the plagues of Egypt, 
indeed of the tropical world, seem to be concen- 
trated in one part of the land, yet there are 
most glowing accounts of beiiuties and 
advantages as may be judged from the fol- 
lowing extracts : — 
'Ihe Uganda Protectorate is the CM.wnof tropical 
Africa ; it contains ail the wenltii, all ilie wonders, 
all ihe beauties which are elsewhere widely scat- 
tered or are fom d in incomplete assemblage. 
Here we have the mightiest ol African rivers and 
the largest of Aincaa lakes, a ^ke, moreover 
whose shores — in its northern part, at any rate 
— exhibit many an earthly paradise. Here we 
have cat racts like the Ripon and Murchison Falls, 
only .surpassed in beamy by the V^ictoria Falls on 
the Zambezi, and in size by some of the Congo 
falls; a mountain-range — Ruwenzori— whose per- 
petual snows jxtend for twenty miles ; an extinct 
voUnco of extraordinary grandeur — Mount Eigon; 
forests in Uf>anda, in Unyoro, and in Toro, which 
in tropical hixuiiance rival those of the Amazons, 
woods of conifers (on the Mau Plateau), recalling 
the scenery, temper iture, and aroma of the Black 
Forest. Over the western jiart of the Protectorate 
coffee grows wild Indiarubber, incense, acacia gum, 
and most other vegetable products characteristic 
of Africa are found in abundance. The rivers — 
even the small mountain stream.s — and the lakes 
abound with fish of excellent quality. This land 
of Beulah, with a climate often delicious and 
scarcely anywheie disagreeable, would be an 
earthly paradise if it were not for the fever 
— malarial or htematuric — which is prevalent in 
most parts below an altitude of 6,000 feet. 
Fortunately, the greater part of the eastern third 
of the Protectorate actually lies above an average 
of 6,000 feet, ranging between tliat altitude and 
10,000 feet on its plateaux, with here and there a 
peak ascending to still greater heights. A not 
inconsiderable proportion of llie western area of the 
Uganda Protectorate also rises to plateaux fairly 
fiee from malarial fever. Whole districts of this 
description have been found so absolutely healthy 
by those Europeans who have resided there for 
any length of linie that there is good reason to 
hope that vv-e have discovered here a portion of 
Equatorial Africa which may be colonised by the 
European race.--; the more so because inter-tribal 
warfare and other causes have depopulated this 
temperate region to a cons-iderable extent, 
leaving large tracts of it without a single humaa 
inhabitant. 
All Negro Nileland, with the exception perhaps 
of the fore.sts near the Cong" watershed, is suited 
fo the breeding of cattle, horses, goats and sheep. 
There is apparently no tsetse fly, and as yet no 
dreaded huisesiekness has arisen to prevent the 
keeping and breeding of horses, mules and don- 
keys. Donkeys indeed are native to the land, the 
wild ass fiom which our domestic animal is deiived 
bems' found in the eastern territories of the Uganda 
Protectorate and in the eastern parts of the Nile 
basiu. Camels aie likewise kept in the regions 
round Lake Kudolf and the south west of Abyssinia. 
It is in fact a stock rearing countiy of ihe very best. 
A sieaijier placed on the Victoria Nyauza could 
convey goods round two thousand miles of coast 
to the railway terminus on Kavirondo Bay, wheie, 
before many months are over, ihe British Gevern- 
meiit railway from the Indian Ocean will have 
attained its hist objective in placing the Victoria 
Nyatijsa within thuty-six hours' journey from 
IViombassa and thiee weeks' from London. 
Ivory is the present wealth of all this land- 
ivory in quaniities unknown, unlieard of, in any 
other part of Africa ; and elephants are still living 
in buch enormous heids as to stand in no danger 
of extinction fiom past excesses on tlie part of 
ivory-hunters, while it is now made a misdemean- 
our lo shoot a female e ephant, or a male elephant 
carrying tu>ks less than ten pounds in weight. In 
the marshy districts, which are uninhabitable by 
man and which are spoiled all over Negro Nileland 
(as though on a map one had dropped a little wee 
sponge 'At intervals), the elephant will find pre* 
