590 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [DEC. 2, 1901. 
NOTES PEOM OUR LONDON LETTER. 
London, Oct. 1?, 
One day this week I spent an hour with 
Mr. Alex. Whyte and had a most interest- 
ing talk with him on his 
EXPERIE5fCE3 IN UGANDA 
•where he has been for the last three years. 
Tropical life seems to agree with him, for 
he really appeared more robust and ener- 
getic than when I last saw him just before 
his departure. He has kept his health 
well and considers the climate of Uganda 
an ideal one. His chief work when there 
was the laying out of Government Bota- 
nical Gardens and introducing various new 
plants into the country. Gram he does not 
consider so far a success, but almost 
everything else one could mention will 
grow well, he says, in the Protectorate. 
English vegetables, rice, fruits of most 
'sorts, save stone fruits for which winter is 
necessary, thrive well ; and the natives who, 
up CO the arrival of Europeans, attempted 
hardly anything in the way of agriculture, 
are now beginning to learn something of 
the wealth that is hidden in the soil. The 
native lives almost entirely on the banana 
which may almost be said to grow by itself. 
Once the trouble of stocking the banuia 
plantation is over, the owner has little else to 
do for the rest of his life but to gather the 
fruit. Consequently he is indolent and re- 
luctant to go in for experiments in novelties. 
Bat the labourers undar Mr Whyte's instruc- 
tions were brought up by the chiefs in levies of 
a hundred or more, who worked for a month 
and then retired to their homes, giving place 
to a fresh relay ; and though the system 
involved extra trouble in the teaching each 
new lot afresh, it has been found that these 
men have become in many cases pioneers in 
their own villages and are eager to introduce 
the new plants to others. The country, Mr 
Whyte predicts, will become a magnificent 
coffee-growing district. Coffee already grows 
wild over all the more hilly parts of Uganda, 
and the conditions of the soil, water supply 
and abundance of shade present advantages 
such as are seldonunet with for its cultivation. 
Local labour is cheap, and once the railway is 
completed and transport becomes easier, pos- 
sibly no other part of Africa will be able to 
compete with Uganda as a coffee country. 
Tea also, Mr Whyte is of opinion, has a great 
future before it in Uganda, where the rainfall, 
though less than in Ceylon is better distributed 
throughout the year. He places the districts in 
Uganda suited for tea as about equal to the me- 
dium elevation tea estates in Ceylon. But I 
am afraid news of districts where more tea 
can be grown, will not be particularly welcome 
to Ceylon readers at present, so I hasten 
to add that there is a large local demand 
for tea among the more civilized natives. 
Rubber, it appears, is to be found in almost 
every thicket below 5,000 feet altitude, chiefly 
from the liana creepers v/hich abound in two 
species (Landolplaia and Strobilanthus.) The 
natives knew of its existence and where to 
find it ; V)ut until urged thereto by the Euro- 
peans, had made no attempt either to collect 
or sciU it. Now they have begun to extract 
rubber, and one of Mr. White's aims in 
London is to get the different varieties 
separated and valued. The natives valued 
the rubber vines principally for their 
fruit which is eaten, but the chief, 
once become alive to the importance of the 
pbuits commercially, are now beginning to 
send their men to be taught the proper 
methods of milking the trees. Sir Harry 
Johnston has concluded an agreement with 
the chiefs which places all the forests of the 
Protectorate under the Crown, and it is no 
longer open to the natives to collect rul)her 
in these forests without permission, but 
the people are encouraged to do so as long as 
the rubber gathering is carried on under 
Government conditions and to sell what they 
get to the merchants. The Government bene- 
fit by a tax of 1.5 per cent which is put on 
all rubber exported from the Protectorate. 
The specimens already sold, though not per- 
fect, realise from 2s to 3s per lb. Mr. Whyte 
hopes' to go back for another short spell, 
till he has seen something further of the 
results. After that he talks of giving up 
tropical life, and coming home definitely to 
settle. At present he goes north for a few 
weeks to Aberdeen, Edinburgh, not foi'getting 
to stop off route for a look at the Glasgow 
Exhibition ere it closes. Mr. Whyte would 
be a capital subject for one of the sketches 
in the Tropical Agriculturist, it strikes me. 
B. P. 
The Working of Rubber— has been begun in 
the department of Santa Cruz, in Bolivia, where 
the supplies of "fine" rubber are reported very 
abundant. "Caucho" has also been discoverer! 
in southern Bolivia. In order to facilitate the 
export of these products a national oustoni house 
has been established on a trioutary of the Para- 
guay river, the waters of which discharge, suc- 
cessively into the Parana and the Rio de la Plata, 
reacliing the seaboaid at Buenos Avres.— India 
Rubber World, Oct. 1st. 
Journal of the Royal Agricultural and 
Commercial Society of British Guiana. — By 
last mail we have received a copy of this pub- 
lication being a record of the transactions of the 
tjociety for 1900. From its pages we note that 
on November 8th, the secretary of the society 
read to the members a letter from the Honorary 
Secretary of the Imperial Institute in reference 
to coconut fibre. The letter indicated that it was 
possible for British Guiana to develop a trade 
in this product. As to the revenue to be derived 
from such, a source he referred the people to tlie 
case of Ceylon, a sample of the coconut fibre of 
which island he enclosed them, and stated that 
at the present lime Ceylon fibre fetched £1-5 per 
ton when landed in London. Abstracts are also 
published showing the land under various products, 
etc. , in the colonised parts of British Guiana for the 
years 1897 and 1898. The total area given as 
under the production of coffee in 1897 in tlie four 
districts :— Berbice, Demerara, Essequebo, ani 
North- VVestern district, is 1,553 acres. Roods are 
also given but in such a manner as to be unintelli- 
gilde to us; cacao, 1,916 acres: kola, 48 acres; 
spices, 3 and coconuts 3, .526 acres. In 1898 the 
totals given for the three districts of Berbice, 
Deinerara and Essequebo aie :— coffee, 608 acres 
cacao, 433 acres ; Uola, 82 acres ; coconuts 
1,150 acres, 
