THE TROPICAL APrRICULTURlST. [Dec. 2, 1901, 
Both the above torraules are based on the actual 
inanarial requirements of a crop of the kind men- 
tioued in a soil of fair average quality. Where 
materials like weil-cout erved and rotted stable 
manure, fowl-yard sweepings, and wood ashes are 
available, the quantities of commercial fertilisers 
can be reduced ; but it mast be remembered, especially 
r-)S I t)inioo33, taat the pjiucipal mauarial 
requirement for good crops is potash, and the pro- 
portion of it in most of the manures that can be 
home-saved is very small. 
The fertilisers mentioned may be rsed as liquid 
manure, by dissolTicg in water, though the best 
plan is to add in the diy state mixed with earth and to 
water the plants afterwards. 
In the case of dried blood, this does not dissolve 
in water and would have to be added separately.-— 
Keiv South H'ales Ayricultui-al Gazette. 
OASTOR-CAKE, CASTOR-OIL, AND 
CASTOR-SEED AND ITS PRO- 
PERTIES. 
Many people are under the impression that the 
castor-cake contain 7 per cent, nitrogen and 12 per 
cent, of moisture, and is thereby considered a man- 
ure sufficiently lucrative for cheena barley and 
other rabi crops. Such is not the caee. Castor- 
cake contains ll'SC per cent, of moisture and5'23 
per cent, of nitrogen and can be used for all 
purposes. Moisture is of very little con^quence to 
the agriculturist, whereas, on ihe other hand, nitrogen 
potash and phosphoric acid are considered the 
most valuable ingreiiienta in a manure, especially 
for leafy crops, and it is needless to say that the 
castor-cake contains all these pioperties, which 
renders it a manure of the very fiist class. The 
reason why it may be looked upon as a manuie 
of the very best, is because it contains 2"53 per 
cent, of nitrogen, more than any o'her manure. 
We all known that potash, which forms one of its 
component parts, is by itself equal to any ingredient 
in a manure. Besides phosphoric acid, the other 
component part is in such a condition of chemical 
combustion as to be easily assimilated by the 
plant. Further, it may be stated that the cake 
contains a certain amount of oil. This oil in itself 
acts as a manure, and at the same time prevents 
the cake from decomposing rapidly in the ground ; 
thus allowing the cake a fertilizing action of more 
than a year. When once a person has studied 
closely and sciutinizingly the properties of the 
castor-cake manure, it does not take him long to 
testify to the effect it has on potatoes, wheat, 
oats, cheena and makai. It on eight biggahs of 
land you strewed 180 maunds of well pulverized 
castor-cake, and sowed this land with oiti^, you 
would tiud that your return would be 143 maunds 
or thereabouts, of good clear oats, with and ex- 
ceedingly heavy crop of straw. Again, if you were 
to sow on 14 cottalis of this land dug out into 
trenches, Nami Tal seed potatoes, you would get 
a return of 82 maunds of crop from about four 
maunds of seed. After these two crops wex'e cleared 
out, if cheena was sown, your return would be just 
as much. Again, after the cheena crop was taken 
up, if makai was planted on the same eight big- 
gahs of land, your yield would be 122 n.auuds from 
not a very liberal sow. Thus in one jear you have 
realized three substantial crops from the same pifce 
of land without any trouble of manuring for each 
crop. This manured land will answer tho following 
year without any ttouole, to rear up another supply 
of the crops mentioned above, exctpliiig that the 
potatoes this time will not be so laige as on the 
former occasion. The husk obtained from the castor- 
eeed, also, acts as a very good manure for flower? 
beds, but great care must be taken in the adminis- 
tration of it, as the ingredients with which tbia 
husk forms a manure, have a tendency to either burn 
up the plants or prevent them from budding- Too 
much Cannot be said on this score, a? the making of 
this manure is a secret. Another mistaken idea is that 
castor oil cannot be bleacheJ. It can ba done, and 
the process is very simple. Pass the oil through 
tha folds, say two, of pure white blotting paper, 
and then expose it to the rays of the sun, under 
he cover a pane of glass. Oil of a reddish hue 
s of course beyond bleaching, as it contains a 
^ar^e portion of moisture, which is obtained from 
the husk. It may be remarked that castor-seeds 
are of various sizes, th mgh more or less of the 
same shape and form. It will be observed that 
the smaller the seed, the more oil you get. Seeds 
of a large form generally contain very little mois- 
ture; as the shell, which is of an absorbing nature, 
deiives its moisture from the kernel. 
The foregoing statements may call forth comments 
from those in the manufacture" of oil, owing to there 
being a, keen competition in the trade, but reliance 
can be put on what has been stated above, as the 
statements to a certain degree are the outcome of 
the experience of the late Chief Engineer of the 
Siran Oil Mills, Mr. Edward Austin Nearae.—7/iiian 
Plttnlers' Gazette. 
COFFEE CULTIVATION IN THE 
FRENCH CONGO. 
The fo'lowing interesting particul irs with regard to 
the cultivaiioii of coffee in the French Congo, bised 
on information applied by the Diiector of the ex- 
perimental Cultivation Gardens at Libreville, in 
repiy to questions addressed to him by the 
"Office Colonial" in Paris, were given some time 
back in the Hoard of I'radt .Journal: 
Liberian coffee is the kind principally gio vn in 
the French Congo, the cultivation of the San Thome 
coffee (Coffea araliea) being now almost abandoned. 
K'Hiilon (coj-ca canephora) and Oubingi {coffee Chaloti) 
grow wild, but the latt r variety is now beginning 
to be cultivated. 
The amount of coffee exported from the French 
Congo during the past four years was as follows: 
Kilos. 
in 13P6 ... 4,471 
„ 1897 30,094 
„ 1898 57,660 
,. 1899 41.2S1 
In January, 1900, 30,473 kilogs., valued at about 
33,500 francs, were exported. The cofiee is exported 
in bags of from 50 to 7C kilogs each, the freight 
for coffae, unhusked, bsiijg 6ri francs psr ton of 1,0)0 
kilogs. by the Chargeur-Reuiiissteamer from Libre- 
ville to Havre. The bagging in which the c^ ffee is 
packed is imported from abroad. Thee ffee planters 
who are themselves merchants export their coffee 
to Europe themselves without the intervention of 
middlemen. Only a small quantity of the coffje is 
sold for local consumption, the retail price at 
Libreville being 2 francs 50 cents per kilog. 
There are at present about 1,800 hectares of coffee 
plantations in the colony in bearing ; in addition 
about 150 hectares hj,ve been planted, bat will not 
yield a crop till about lO^'S. 
The'e is no export duty on coffee coming frim 
the Gaboon district, but lh.it produced in the con- 
ventional basis is dutiable at the rate of 5 per cent, 
ad valorem, on a valuation of 60 francs per 100 kilogs. 
Note.— Kilog.=2-2 lb. Hect*re=2-47acres, Frauc-^9tiJ, 
—Tea. 
