670 
THE TROPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST. 
[April ], 1902. 
A NEW PROCESS FOR THE RECOVERY 
OF INDIA-RUBBER. 
Our esteemed contemporary, the Gumini Zei- 
tung, in its last issue contains a ratLier enthusi- 
astic article on a new process for the recovery of 
india-rubber, the invention of Mr Albert Theil- 
gaard, of Copenhagen. 
Any new process of this description is worth 
careful attention, but evidence so far submitted 
in proof of what this process actually accom- 
plishes is hardly sufficient for us to share the 
sanguine expectations of our contemporary. Great 
stress is laid, in two expert opinions accompanying 
the article, upon the fact that this new re- 
covered rubber may be re-vulcanised, and that it 
contains a very small proportion only of combined 
sulphur. All this may be true, but Messrs Somer- 
vilte, of Liverpool, have for years been selling 
a re-covered rubber of this description, and Messrs 
Rowley, Manchester, and the Rubber Chemical 
Company, of Mitcham, tor some considerable time 
have been manufacturing an excellent product 
of this sort. Nor is there much to be said about 
the low percentage of combined sulphur in the 
new product, as long as no reliable information 
is to hand respecting the percentage of combined 
sulphur in the stock before recovery. The new 
process appears to consist in a treatment of the 
waste with alkaline sulphites and appears to rely 
upon their well-recognised property to dissolve 
sulphur (free), as clso upon its reducing (oxygen 
absorbing) powers. But as to the first of these 
properties, this could only allow of the re- 
moval of the free sulphur, but not of. the 
combined sulphur, and the reducing properties of 
alkaline sulphites are well recognised to be of a 
very low order only, so that the reduction of rubber, 
deteriorated by oxidation, to oxygen-free rubber by 
this means is a statement calculated to make us 
rather sceptical. If true, it would involve, as a 
matter of fact, the discovery of, so far, totally 
unexpected properties in a particularly well-known 
and much-used chemical substance. There is, of 
course, nothing impossible in this, but merely 
ground for reservation of judgment. India-rubber 
has been in the past, and will be for some time to 
come, the subject of startling announcements. 
We hope to revert to this subject, as to the 
matter of re-covered rubber in general, in the 
near ixitnre.—India-Rubber Trades' Journal, 
Feb. 3. 
^ 
DOES SUGAR-CANE EXHAUST THE 
SOIL ? 
Question. — For some years my land (scrub) has 
produced good crops of cane, but of late the crops 
have been almost too light to pay for cutting and 
loading. Yet I can get very good crops of corn or 
potatoes oif the same land. Has the cane exhausted 
the soil? 
Answer There is practically no such thing as an 
exhausted soil, but the available plant food near the 
aurfaoe may have been exhausted. !n your scrub 
soil there is plenty more of the plant food which 
Bugar-cane requires, but it is out of reach of the 
roots, and requires to brought up either by subsoiling 
or by growing nitrogen-producing plants. Again, 
the soil cannob bo exhausted, afi yon say you oan 
eet good crops o£ corn and potatoes from tbe land, 
Kt {>* the ^lant food needful for oaus which has 
been carried off year by year till little is \^tt. A 
glunco at the following table will at once sbChv you 
the reaHon for the failure of cane-crops. 
Crops remove from the soil plant food in the 
following proportion : — 
Nitrogen. Phosphoric Potash. Lime. 
Acid. 
Sugar-cane ... 
127 
44 
298 
71 
Wheat 
43 
23 
36 
16 
Barley 
47 
23 
54 
11 
Maize 
61 
31 
66 
14 
Bice 
41 
26 
68 
ID 
Potatoes 
26 
13 
48 
2 
Cotton 
54 
19 
40 
25 
From this, you can at once see that sugar-cane 
extracts from the soil about five times as much 
nitrogen, three times as mucli phosphoric acid, and 
six times as much potash as do potatoes. — Queens hind 
Agricultural Journal, Feb. 1. 
TEA IN AMERICA. 
A well-known Dundee gentleman who has 
just returned from a tour in the States, 
writes as follows: — "Throughout the whole 
4,000 miles I travelled the tea was much finer 
in quality and flavor than on my former 
visit. Of course, green teas were largely in 
evidence but even away down south in Texas 
they had splendid black tea which they des- 
cribed on their bills of fare as ' English 
Breakfast l ea ' and the same on the Pullman 
cars. I could not find out if these teas were 
from Ceylon," 
UGANDA AND THE UGANDA 
RAILWAY : 
500 MILES OP COUNTRY OPENED UP 
TO THE GREAT LAKE ; 
RUBBER, COFFEE, TOBACCO AVAIL- 
ABLE. 
Commander Whitehouse, r.n., brother of 
the Chief Engineer of the Victoria Nyanza 
Railway, and who himself has done splendid 
work in surveying the great lake, has 
been lecturing on the above subject 
— reference to which is made in our tele- 
graphic columns this evening — before the 
Colonial Section of the Society of Arts 
with Sir Henry M. Stanley, g.c.b., in the 
Chair. The railway from Mombasa (sea 
level) to Port Florence (3,726 feet above the 
sea) on the Victoria Nyanza is .582 miles in 
length with some 30 intermediate stations. It 
rises to 7,900 feet at the.SoSth mile; descends 
to 6,000 feet, mile 430, at Lake Elmenteita ; 
rises to 8,320 feet (higher than Pidurutala- 
gala) at mile 490 on the Mare ranges ; and 
then runs down 4,600 feet in the last 100 
mi'es through country no European had 
ever penetrated previous to September 18.98. 
The journey from Mombasa to Port Flo- 
rence will take 2^ days with 1 day more 
for a steamer journey to Mengo, the capital 
of Uganda, against 70 days at the least by 
the old caravan rotite from the coast to 
the capital. The Chief Engineer and his 
staff arrived at Mombasa on 11th December 
1895 and the first locomotive reached the 
great Lake shore on 19th December 1901. 
JNo wonder, though. Sir Guilford Molesworth 
K.C.I.E., in the after discussion, spoke of 
the great work done in the face of unique 
difficulties :— unknown country, newness of 
