March i, 1892.] THE TROPIOlAL A'QRICULTlUmSt, 623 
effects of the Company." Before the above Reso- 
lution was p;;t to the meeting Messrs. Deane and 
Armstrong declined to serve unless they were un- 
animously elected. 
Resolution IV. was proposed by Mr. G. A. TjUlbot, 
seconded by Mr. A. P. Ckawley-Boevey. :— " That 
Mr. J. Guthrie be appointed to inspect the Liquida- 
tor's accounts." 
The meeting of the shareholders then dispersed. 
Confirmed at Kandy this 1.5th day of January 1892. 
(Signed' C. Speabman Armstrong, 
Chairman. 
Minutes of proceedings of an extraordinary gene- 
ral meeting of the shareholders of the Ceylon Tobacco 
Company Limited " held within the registerod office 
No. 4'2 King Street, Kandy, on Friday, the ISth 
day of January 1892, at 3o'cIook in the afternoon. 
Business. 
To confirm the following: special resolutioa passed 
at the extraordinary meeting: held on November 
28th last at the Company's registered office viz : — 
" That the Ceylon Tobacco Company Limited, bo 
wound up voluntarily." The shareholders present 
were Mr. C. S. Armstrong, Chairtnaa of the Board 
of Directors), who presided Messrs. T. O. Huxloy, 
R. li B. Walker, H. V>. Deane, J. R. Fairweather, A 
Phihep (Secretary of the Company ). 
The notice calling the meeting was read. 
The minutes of proceedings of the Extraordinary 
general meeting of shareholders held on Satur- 
day the 28th day of November 1891 were read and 
were confirmed. Read letters from Messrs. Volkart 
Brothers. 
The following gentlemen held proxies for share- 
holders absent : — Mr. A. Philip, for Messrs. H. J. 
Vollar, P. G. Bevs'es, J. T. Emerson, Alexander Tait, 
George Wall, James Bisset, Mrs. Edith Dick, Messrs. 
A. P. CraWley-Boevey, W. Megginson, E. H. Hutch- 
inson, J. M. Murdoch, Hugh Fraser, Mrs. A. P. 
Boustead, Messrs. Thomas North Christie, David Reid, 
H. K. Rutherford, T. N. Orchard, T. C. Owen, Norman 
"W. Grieve, W- Mills and S. L. Harries; Mr. C. S. 
Armstrong for BIr. P. E. Radley; Mr. H, D. Deane 
for Mr. 0. Miuto Gwatkin. 
RoBolalion proposed by Mr.C. S. ArmstroDg,Keconded 
by Mr. T. C. Huxley, and unanimously carried: 
" That the foUowinc special resolution pasjiied at the 
extraordinary general meeting held on Nov. 28th last 
at the Company's Registered Otfioe, viz.: That the 
Ceylon Tobacco Company Limited be wound up volun- 
tarily be and the same is hereby confirmed, 
The meeting thereafter dispersed." 
A. Philip, Secretary. 
♦ 
A MEacABi correspondent writes to a oon- 
temporary : — "Coffee > elling at R14'8 a bushel, 
delivered on the estate I No wonder we are all in 
such high spirits. Such crops and sueh prices have 
not been experienced for years ! A happy New Year 
indeed!" — Madras Mail. 
Coffee and Tea in Java.— The estimate of the 
G overnment's ooffee crop on Java is, according to 
a telegram, 385,194 picule. The latest reports 
regarding the weather in Java are favourable for 
the ooSee cultivation. Tha outturn of the crop 
will be generally equal to the preceding one, and 
esppoially in Malay, the crop will be large. Other pro- 
duce,' such as sugar, tobacco, indigo, and tea, which 
require plenty of rain, have suffoied much from 
the excessive drought, which has prevailed in Java, — 
L. and C- Kprcss, Jan, 1st. 
Tui! SnruKu Unoeutainty of TniNaa in regard to 
the Australian pastoral and agricultural industries is 
being remarkably illustrated juat now. A few months 
iH;o (^leiinsland was in tlio darkest dopths of de- 
pression. Drought, as usual, wag the primal oauee. 
Hi'avy nnd universal rains however, arrived just in 
the nick of time, and now the wool clip and the 
wheat harvest have been enormous. The increase 
in live stock hr.a boon proportionato. In 1880 the 
returns wore <i,(')!)0,000 sheop and 4,071,000 cattle. 
The ostimate for the present year is 21,000,000 sheep 
and 6,250,000 cattle. Such is the diSerenoe ita 
countries subjoot to severe and protracted droughts 
of a few inches o£ rain at the right time. — Pall Mall 
Gazette. 
Cocoa and its Combinations. — At the Woolwich 
Polioa-oourt, on December 23, Robert. Purvis, grocer, 
was summoned by the Woolwich Local Board of 
Health for soiling cocoa injuriously adulterated with 
56 per cent, of foreign matter. The analyst's 
certificate showed that the sample contained 44 per 
cent, of cocoa, 40 per cent, of starch, and 16 per cent, 
of sugar. The inapsotor by whom the article waa 
purchased said he paid Is. a pound, and that he 
brought some for his own consumption, and found 
it palatable. It was labelled "Rook Cocoa." Mr. 
Hughes, M.P., who represented tha Board, argued 
that if this was sold as a mixture it ought to 
have been so labelled. It might be called "ooooa- 
stareh." Mr. Forbes said that cocoa in its natural 
state contained 53 per cent, of vegetable fat, and 
this must either be removed or neutralised by the 
admixture of sugar or some such starch as arrow- 
root or sago, in order that it might easily be 
converted into a beverage and rendered fit for 
consumption. He produced a book written by Dr. 
Bell, public analyst at Somerset House, in which 
it was stated that cocoa bo prepared would not 
be considered as adulterated so long as it was not 
described as pure cocoa. Dr. Bell set down 36'70 
per cent, cocoa to be a fair proportion to the 
other ingredients. This rock cocoa which contained 
44 per cent, coooa, ho contended, came under the 
exception allowed in the Act of Parliament to 
articles of commerce containing nothing injurious 
and nothing added for the purpose of fraudulently 
increasing its bulk. Mr. Kennedy, in giving judg- 
ment, said he thought that cocoa came under the 
exception in the Act, and dismissed the summons. 
— Chemist and Druggist. 
Nutmeg Growing in the West Indies. — A good 
deal of attention is being paid to the propogation 
of nutmegs in Jamaica. Large quantities of seed- 
nutmegs have recently been imported there from 
some of the best Grenada estates. One would-be 
cultivator has already ordered 10,000 young plants 
from the Government gardens, and another 6,000. 
The tress usually yield their first crop when nine 
years old, and continue to bear for seventy or 
eighty years. The crop depends largely upon the 
amount of care bestowed upon the tree, the average 
in the W. Indies being 10 lb. of nutmegs and 1 
lb. of macs every year, but from well-manured 
trees ten times that quantity has been obtained. 
A^ Grenada planter writes as follows to the manager 
of the Jamaica horticultural gardens: — The mode 
adopted hero for preparing nutmegs for the London 
market is very simple. The nutmegs are picked 
up from under the trees daily and brought into 
the boucan, where the mace is peeled off and 
flat between heavy blocks of wood, where it is left 
for two or three days, then put into a oasa and 
left till it reaches the proper colour. The nutmegs 
are put into receptacles (with fine-wire mesh bottoms 
so that the air can pass) inside tha boucan, and 
left there for three weeks or a month until the 
nut begins to shaka inside the shell. They are 
then shown the sun for a couple of hours a day for 
two or throe days. After this they are cracked. 
Great care is necessary here, for if the outside 
shell is Btruok too bard it makes a black spot in 
tha nutmeg which allecta the value considerably. 
When cracked, the nuts are sorted according to 
siz9, put into ordinary flour-barrels and shipped. 
By last mail the average of my prices was about 
2s ().\d a lb. In the shipment was included a case 
of pure rubbish — small shrivelled, worm-oats nuts 
fetching about Is a Ih.—Ciu-mist and Druggist, 
Jan. 2nd. 
