THE TROPICAL AGRICULTtillST. [Feb. 1, im. 
. It ia satisfactory to know that the researches at 
BothatnBted will be carried on in the fatare under 
the direction of the Lawes TruBtees. 
The fnneral of the late Sir Henry Gilbert 
took place at Harpenden on Friday, December 27th, 
and was attended by the members of the Lawes 
Agricnitaral Trust Committee, and representatives 
of many of the scientific societies of the country. 
—Gardeners' Chronicle. 
^ . 
COCONUT PLANTING IN THE NORTR- 
WESTERN PROVINCE. 
NEWS NOTES. 
A Marawila correepondent writes : — Tlie 
tweather seems to have set fair. Save for a drizzly 
day on the 18th, we have had no rain since the 7th 
Jan. The mornings are very dewy and cold, 
with the temperature down to 74 dep;. The after- 
noons are very hot with the temperature at 88 dej;. 
The variation is not violent, yet fever, coughs and 
colds and dysentery are prevalent. 
A little heat seems to have been evolved from 
the chronicling of record prices for nuts. By the 
time my communication appeared, the price I 
recorded had already been topped in several 
places. Eor the pr3sent, Kimbulapitiya heads the 
list. Since I took to planting in the low country, 
I had always heard dealers describe those as the 
best nuts in the Negombo district. Since then, 
systematic cultivation may have raised the 
quality of the nuts of other estates up to that 
istandard, or even beyond it. 
The present crops are better than the last crops 
of the last year, but they will not be available for 
some little time longer. Prices of nuts and copra 
are keeping up. The mills have been compelled 
to raise their prices gradually in oider to attract 
grist to them. 
There has been no confirmation to the rumour 
set afloat by a contemporary of yours, as to an 
early commencement being made with the 
Colombo-Puttalam railway. You must agitate for 
it, Sir, in and out of season. It is a crying want, 
with the advancement of the districts through 
which it will have to pass. It is a railway that 
■will have to be opened in sections, and will pay 
from the start. As far as Chilaw, the route is 
thickly populated, and an over-flowing passenger 
traflBc is assured. It is an ideal route for motor 
ears, and one would have thought it would have 
Ibeen the first to have been occupied by the Rapid 
Transit Company, as a precursor to the Railway. 
If the Government offer this Company liberal 
terms to occupy this route, valuable and reliable 
statistics will be available from its annual report 
of the passenger traffic a railway will attract at 
tiie start. At the start only — for passenger, like 
other traffic developes with the passage of time. 
4 
FKU IT-GROWING IN CEYLON : 
MR. JOHN COTTON'S ORCHARD AT 
NUWARA ELIYA. 
VisitorM to Nuwara Eliya can do no better 
than spend idle moments by visiting the Orchard 
at Lake View where Mr Cotton with genial cour- 
tesy is only too please(J to sjiow anybody louncl 
the sphere of his labors, where with much pride 
he now directs attention to an eating pear 
^Lecount) which after seven years' coaxing has 
Just now one single fruit of a fairly decent size 
on one of its branches. With a recent importa- 
tion of cherry plants from Australia, Mr Cotton 
has been very successful. One of the plants had 
been barely down six months when it flowered 
and came to fruit in splendid health, Mr 
Cotton watched its growth very attentively 
and was in hopes of picking a ripe cherry 
for the first time out in Ceylon, when some 
ruthless hand plucked the firsc before it had 
even a chance of getting thoroughly matured. 
Several apple trees which have been experimented 
on, and transplanted about the orcliaid indiffer- 
ent soil and shade, have now got planted out to 
all appearances in their right places and are 
flushing beautifully and should get t« fruit soon 
(as the plants aie very much healthier than the 
plant so much fussed about at Frederics Ruhe 
here and expected to bear this year). The Red- 
heart Plum crop this year has not come on so 
well as it did last year when every tree in the 
orchard was laden with the fruit. But 
this deficit by way of income will be put 
on a par by the exceptionally large crop of th« 
cooking pears on all the trees in the orchard. 
A New Method of Pruning has evidently been 
tried by Mr. Cotton. The writer's attention was 
drawn to one particular tree which has several 
hundred fruits on it. The tree itself, Mr. Cotton 
is of opinion, is at least twenty-five years old and 
is really worth a peep at, just now. In a shady 
corner of the orchard, Mr, Cotton has an artificial 
dam where a constant water supply is let in and 
out of it. Here some trout are being very care- 
ful 'y matured with a view of getting tlie trout 
to spawn. Should the effort succeed Mr. Cotton 
will commence operation on a larger scale, and 
who knows that it will not in this direction, too, 
develop so, as to induce the Fishing Club to 
seriously make a similar attempt. 
Club Root. — The cabbage disease is being fought 
against by Mr, Cotton with every possible experi- 
ment. Small success has crowned much untold 
labour. But the demon disease has not yet been 
laid low. That great success attend the new 
effort Mr, Cotton is about to make in this con- 
nection is the hearty wish of all vegetable growers 
im Nuwara Eliya. — Cor, 
4 
DR, PATBICK MANSON ON MOSQUITOES 
AND MALARIA. 
Dr Patrick Manson's lecture at the London 
Institution last night on the "Conveyance of 
Malaria by Mosquitoes " contained some interest* 
ing points and suggestions. It was now definitely 
known he said that malaria was none other than 
a parasite which lived in the red blood corpuscles 
of the hnman body and was carried about from 
victim to victim by mosquitoes. The success of 
the campaign against the evil would depend upon 
the intelligent co-operation of those whom it was 
intended to benefit. The necessities of the mos- 
quitoes constituted the sanitarian's opportunities. 
Mosquitoes must lay theii eggs in water, and in 
that element the larvce could alone exist. The 
obvious course therefore was to render the water 
unsuitable which would he the radical inethot^ 
