August i, 1891.] 
THF TROPICAL AQRSCULTURIST. 
139 
is not the soienoe of tho arborioulturist. It is a 
Boience peouliat to itself and has been studied on 
its own merits. As far as I have made it out, 
tho matter stands thus :— The art of pruning for 
flush depends on the skill of training cooliea to 
reoognize red wood and prune acoordiugly. The 
man who is fortunate in having riah loamy soil and 
good developed trees of high jac on flat ground and 
sheltersd from marauding winds, this man can 
prune high and make the moat cf his busnes. 
But even he will have to out down now and again to 
stimulate his bushas. The man who has a great many 
white-wooded trees of low jas which are I'lolined to 
go to seed ; the man who has exposed fields and 
unfavourable soil, or high elevation and cold 
temperature,— t/i«s<3 hava to prune " as if th«y 
were angry with the bush." It ia a matter of 
experience. Oommonsenae will tell you that bushes 
which soon shut up, whether on account of soil, jat, 
aspect, or elevation, must be kept down and plucked 
hard from the start. The old idea of pruning for 
breadth is exploded. You have a fine big bush, 
and your fields look luxuriant and the ground is 
well covered ; but if you count the number of avail- 
able shoots in the old method as compared with 
those in the severe method there ia no oampansou. 
We don't want to cultivate trees, and we don't 
want to kill our bushes. On the ons hand we 
do not want our bushes to run away up, 
neither do we want to kill ihem outright. But 
I think experience shows that the greater distance 
from the ground the greater likelihood of the sap 
ceasing. Those " thick leafless sticks " that your 
tree-cultivator ia so angry with are just those from 
which ',ou will get liae red wood. FoUoto the red 
wood. i . ' • 1 ■ 1^- have not 
■. ^ . , b plenty of it 
e^. , .y , , _ , : .. ,> ■ ar. Follow the 
red -w ioa weafc ei^c- i-rnu a^^^ording to its 
individual oharaotaristics and iuiosyncracies. It 
your bushes are white, inclined to bloasom, or 
sulky, or backward in any way— cut away and 
force a crop of red wood. If you can't get red 
wood, pull the whole blooming es aie up. 
But a word to the wise. Don't, prune severely 
in very dry weather, or it ia the very d -1. 
The old way of pruning high, then leaving a long 
pipe of 6 inches on the top of thai (to prune into 
next year, "dontcherknow"), which makes the bushes 
sulk as long as a pruning, or rather which is in 
itaelf a second pruning, then mild plucking on the 
top of that:— why, before the year is out your 
bushes are away high up and only the centres 
are yielding flush. Then the jealous way with 
which the side branches were guarded from the 
coolies ruthless hands. Why, if you leave this they 
become " bangey," and don't oome on. If you pluck 
them you encourage flushing and draw them up. 
Let your maxims be ; — 
(1) Follow the red wood ; 
(2) No stagnatioa ; 
(3) OommonseuBe ; 
(4) Sweat and Bboe-leather. . 
^ ' PRACTICAL MAN. 
MICA AND TALC ; USEFUL INFOBMATION. 
giB —That talc and mica are commercially inter- 
changeable terms may account for the fact thsit many 
people use the term talc when speaking of m-.ca, 
but how anyone who knows anyhiug oC geology 
oould contuse two substances so distinct in compo- 
sition, appearance and properties, is difficult to 
explain. There are some who are under the im- 
pression that mica only when it occurs as flakes as 
it does in many igneous rooks, merits the name of 
inioa ; but that when it ia found as a diatinot 
mineral in plates of any size, it should be termed 
talc. This is as unreasonable as supposing that 
graphite when it occurs in flakes as a rook consti- 
tuent must only be called plumbago ; but when it ia 
found in any quantity, as a separate mineral it 
should receive another name. The mioas are sili- 
cates of alumina with silicates of potash, magnesia 
and other bases : they crystalize in prismatic 
forms, and are all remarkable for their very perfect 
cleavage — splitting into very thin laminte which are 
flexible and elastic. Talo is a hydrated magnesium 
silicate and is monoolinio : it is very sectile with a 
greasy feel, and splits up into thin non-elastic 
folia. But these definitions and descriptions, which 
can be found in any book on mineralogy, are 
quite unnecessary to one who has once seen and 
leit talo and mica. The soapy feeling to the touch 
is sufficient to enable anyone to distinguish talo 
from mica with closed eyes. However excusable 
it m^^y be for commercial men to confuse these 
term-", that those who as scientific autho- 
rities and heads of scientific institutions should 
do BO, and what is more mislead others, is un- 
pardonable. — Yours D. 
" D " renders a useful sarvioe in making clear 
the scientific and practical distinction between 
Mioa and Talc. In the Export Trade accounts of 
the Government of India we find the heading to 
run :—" Mica (commercially called Talc)" ! In the 
Ceylon Cuatoms accounta, now, the heading " Mioa" 
ia omitted and only " Talo" given. — Ed, T. A,} 
Cotton Cultivation to be Started at Kasativu,— • 
July 19th. Lord A. Osborne and Mr. Butler have 
been the gm s's here of Mr. Pennycuick, but left two 
or three lays ago for the Karativu island — a long 
strip of land lying north of Dutch Bay. It is thein 
inte. tion, I am tj.j, go buy uy this island and to 
plaut it with 0 tton — a capital idea, and one which I 
hope will be carried out ! — Puttalan Cor. 
Coconut Cultivation in the North-Cbn- 
tral Pkovince. — fiy returns received for our 
Directory, we are glad to see that coconut — like 
ptiddy — cultivation under the influence of the 
new state of things, is fast extending in the 
North-Central Province. The Government Agent, 
lately instituted a census of palm trees and the result' 
so far as coconuts are concerned is: — 
47,613 bearing coconut palms. 
34,470 young palms not in bearing. 
So that in the past five years, the number 
of coconut palms previously existing has been 
increased by 75 per cent. At 80 trees to an 
acre, the total of 82,083 palma represents 1,026 
acres fully planted in the North-Central Province. 
EiGE Cultivation in the United States. — 
An elaborate article on this subject, illustrated 
by engravings, principally from quaint Burmese 
drawings, appears in the Louisiana Planter and 
Sugar Mcumfaciurer, After a sketch of the history 
of rice culture and the kinds used and modes of 
cultivation in Egypt, China, India, Burma, Ceylon, 
&o., the whole process of growth and " manufacture " 
in the United States is described at great length. 
We are reprinting the article in the Household 
Bcyister &nd Tropical Agriculturist, because hints 
useful in Ceylon may be obtained from the widely 
dif£-rent mode of culture observed in the Western land 
whither rice seems to have oome from Madagaaoaf. 
In slavery time the enterprise was of great im- 
portance, but It was ruined in the Civil War ; and 
the writer of the paper ia not hopeful of its 
revival to any great extent by means of expensive 
free labour. We have hill rice and irrigated rice 
in Ceylon : in Carolina the grain is amphibious, 
—being grown in water, but ripened on dry eoil, 
