740 
tHE TKOPICAL 
AGRICULTURIST; [May 1, 1902. 
bloom of its Canary Island rival, and therefore, 
housekeepers in pnrchasinf; the fruit for table were 
liable to overlook the Jamaica banana. He could 
also bear tesumony to the worth of the Jamaica 
cigar and had heard on very high authority that 
there was no reason why Jamaica should not grow 
as good tobacco and turn out as good cigars as Cuba. 
He was particularly pleased to hear the tribute Mr 
Thomas had paid to the Jamaica Negro who was not 
Buoh a bad fellow as he was very often made eut to 
be. In support of thst contention one simply had to 
ask, Who did nil the hard work in the Panama 
Canal 1 It was done by the Jamaica Negro. The con- 
tractor for one of the smaller railway extensions 
carried out in the Island of Jamaica, Mr Murray 
Campbell, had said that in a large experience with 
various clasees of labour he was perfectly satisfied 
with the J8,maica labourer at Is. a day. In the 
past difficulties had arisen which had stood in the 
way of better relations between the employers and 
the employed; but that was not to be wondered at when 
a similar state of affairs hid existed between the 
employers and employed in England. He felt extreme- 
ly grateful to Mr Thomas for his extremely interesting 
peper.— /ottrnaZ ef the Society of Arts, Feb. 7. 
~— — . — # 
PLANTING NOTES. 
The Tamed Zebra a Success.— Evidently 
the taming of wild zebras is proving successful. 
The " Official Gazette" (Mombasa) contains an 
advertisement that Baron Bronsart von Sheblen- 
dorff. of Kilimanjaro, is prepared to supply 
tamed but unbroken zebras at 200 to 300 rupees 
each, and tamed and broken-in animals at just 
twice that price. Orders can be executed in nine 
months.— Mail, March 11. 
A Railwat to Nta88ALAn».— It will be 
seen from the following paragraph frorri a 
recent number of the "Scottish Geographical 
Magazine." that the time allowed the Shire 
Highlands Railway Nyassaland Company, 
to raise its capital expired on the 3rd 
instant ; — 
"The Shire Highlands(or Central Africa)Railway. 
—Many of this Society and readers of this Maga- 
zine will be gratified to learn that an agreement 
has been concluded, on the 3rd of September be- 
tween the Government and the Shire Highlands 
Railway, Nyassaland Company, for the construc- 
tion of a railway in the British Central Ainca Pro- 
tectorate. If the Company provides within six 
calendar months from that date a certain sum of 
money to be devoted to the construction of the 
Central Africa Railway, the Government by the 
Crown agents will enter into a contract with tlie 
Company. The prescribed sum is to be raised by 
an issue of Debentures of the Company constituting 
a first charge on all the present and future assets 
of the Company. The railway is to start from 
Chiromo and thence proceed to Blantyre, and 
subsequently to Lake Nyassa. The Company is 
to hare the use of plans, surveys and report* in 
the possession of the Government, but the Gov- 
ernment may require an additional survey to bo 
commenced within three months from the datt of 
the contract and completed within nine months, 
and the railway commenced within fifteen months 
from the same date. The railway is to be built in 
sections of twenty miles," 
We cannot tell yet if the Company had 
})9»n succ«ai5ful. We hope so, 
District Pbichs a.nd Reduction of TE'*^ 
Output.— It is worthy of note— says India'"^ 
Gardening and Planting —th-At Dooars, th® 
only Indian tea district that does not show 
a reduction in the crop of 1901, is the district 
which has obtained the greatest benefit from 
the rise in prices at home since the middle 
of last year. Up to the beginning of February 
the average of all Dooars tea sold on garden 
account this 1801-02 season is 6 84d, a full 
penny better than in the corresponding 
period in 1900-01. The average of all Indian 
teas sold on garden account during the same 
period is only a half-penny better than in the 
previous year, so Dooars has done the best 
of all districts in this respect notwithstand- 
ing a bad start. 
A State Laboratory for Studying 
Plant Diseases.— A correspondence has been 
taking place in "Nature" between Mr. W. 
Carruthers of the British Museum and Sir 
W. T. Dyer of Kew on the need for a State 
Agricultural Laboratory where the diseases 
of plants can be investigated and remedies 
found by experiment and other means. The 
question arose in a statement made by Mr. 
Carruthers at the RoyalMicroscopical Society, 
of which he is President, as to this national 
want. Sir William Dyer considers that Kew 
already fulfils this want by naming fungi 
which are sent to them, but Mr. Carruthers 
refers to a recent case of cherry disease in 
which the steps which prevented the spread 
of the evil, were taken by the Royal Agri- 
cultural Society and by private individuals, 
and not by Kew or the Board of Agricul- 
ture. As a colony we are ahead of the old 
country in employing Government officials 
to devote themselves to these important 
matters. 
Ophir and Tarshish.— In reviewing a new 
book, " The Gold of Ophir," by Professor A H 
Keane, the London Times says : — 
The site allotted to Ophir must stand the test of 
many conditions. Professor Keane decides, we think 
rightly, in favour of the south of Arabia, the country 
known as the Hadramant, the ancient Himyaritic 
territory. Ophir was a great city or emporium of 
which Moscha, about half way along the southern 
coast of Arabia, was the port. It was not the place 
at which the gold and other products to which it gave 
its name were found ; it was the emporium to which 
the products of the East and the South were brought, 
and from which they were distributed by the enter- 
prising Yemenites through the medium of the 
Phoenicians and other navigators who made use of the 
Red Sea as a great trade route. Professor Eeane, 
in coming to this conclusion, agrees with some dis- 
tinguished predecessors, though no one before him 
has adduced nearly so much evidence in support of 
it. The same may be said of the arguments by 
which he proves that the gold imported into Ophir 
and re-exported for the use of Solomon and other 
potentates could only have been furnished by the rich 
gold-bearing country lying to the south of the Zambesi, 
which Professor Kear.e identifies with the Scriptural 
Havilah. Recent explorers of this territory, which is 
now British — especially Messrs. Hall and Neal, to 
whose work Professor Keane expresses himsejf as 
greatly indebted-^have satisfied themselves that gold 
equivalent to many millions sterling must have been 
extracted from these mines by the Saba»an Arabs and 
the Phceuicians who succeeded them, Tarshish Pro- 
fessor Keane identities with the modern Sofala, 
though here his evidence is mot quite so strong ; while 
the land of Punt he locates with much probability iq 
(hQ north-oast horn Qi Atx'm, 
