THE TROPIOm. AGWroOLTURlST. 
[May 2, i8q2. 
Shipments Lb. English Under 3% 
from 
Java for 1891 
Ceylon „ 
India „ 
8,000,000 
6,000,000 
4,500,000 
2,240,000 
4,000,000 
2,025,000 
Per- Remain- 
56 ing for 
shipment 
5,760,000 
2,000,000 
2,475,000 
18,500,000 8.265,000 10,235,000 
Bark unlike other produce will keep for years. 
Lately some Cuprea, vfhich Vifas imported years ago, 
waa put up for sale at a London auction. 
If large quantities, especially of the poorer kinds, 
are thrown on the market, they are bought up by 
speculative manufacturers or speculators and stored 
for use in the future, or to be resold in case of a rise 
in price. 
The effect of this is not only to depress prices 
for the present but to keep them down for years to come. 
There is the danger, too, of a combination among 
buyers. 
This state of things can only be prevented bv pro- 
ducers destroying, instead of shipping, their poor barks: 
thus producers have the remedy in their own hands. 
The present slight rise in price is caused by the 
increased demand for quinine owing to the influenza 
epidemic. When this demand ceases, will not prices 
fall back to their former level, or even lower ? 
Ledgeriana bark gives an average of 4 to 5 per cent 
of quinine. . 
Succirubra and »th»r kinds, good renewed, an aver- 
age of over 3 per cent of quinine. 
Succirubra and other kinds, bad renewed (that 
which has been renewed over 3 times and has become 
" corky " and fibrous), under 3 per cent of quinine. 
Succirubra and other kinds natural an average of 
under 2 per cent of quinine. 
If the value of the unit is Id to Ijd, 
Barka under 2 p. c. would fetch about about Id p. unit. 
„ 3 „ „ lid „ 
,, over 3 ,, ,, Ijd ,, 
The expenses of harvesting, shipping and selling 
come to about £20 per ton. I will call bark yielding 
over 3 °Iq good, under 3 % bad. 
I will class producers of ledger bark as No. 1, 
of different kinds as No. 2, of kinds yielding under 
3% as No. 3. 
Class No. 1 need not be considered. 
Class No. 2 would do well to regard the following. 
f 
56 
Profit. 
60 
58 
40 
291 
100 
466 
100 
18 
191 
366 
Crop of 10 tons. 
3 tons 2 o/o at Id per unit 
Less expenses of harvesting, ship- 
ping and selling at £20 
2 tons 2i % at lid per unit 
Less expenses as above 
5 tons 5 °/o at IJd per unit 
10 tons less expenses as above 
5 tons under 3 % destroyed. 
5 tons under 5 % (average of good 
ledger) at 2d per unit 
10 tons less expenses as above 
But would the value of the unit stop at 2d supposing 
the supplies to be reduced by one-third or more ? 
Class 3 are the chief producers of bad bark, and they 
have to consider whether (if it pays them at all) it 
will pay them best to continue, to throw on the 
market their bad and to depress and keep down 
prices or to cut down their trees and destroy the 
bad bark, in which case there would be a probability 
of prices rising and being really remunerative when 
the suckers which would spring from the "stools" 
would be ready and would produce good. 
Class 3 should recollect that bad barks had their 
day from 1877 to 1883. 
Getting all producers to agree to carry out a plan. 
This is a point which all bark growers would do well 
to consider. The chief difficulty is the intense 
jealousy which seems to be felt if one class obtains a 
sliKht advantage over another. 
Ceylon contains most of the bad kinds, but planters 
there are doing well with tea : they would then be tlie 
better able to sacrifico their bad bark. 
.Java has taken the lead in thinking of plans to 
meet the situation ; th»io is therefore the more 
probability of their joining in any good plan. 
NOTES ON POPULAR SCIENCE. 
By Db. J. E. Taylor, f.l.s., f.g.s., &c., 
Editor or "Science Gossip.'' 
The active and industrious French agricultural 
chemists, Professors Schloesing and Lament, have just 
read another important paper before the Paris Aca- 
demy of Sciences on "The Fixation of Free Nitrogen 
by Plants." They arrive at the conclusions that there 
are some inferior green plants capable of fixing 
atmospheric or gaseous nitrogen. Under the condi- 
tions of their experiments they found that peas take 
up much atmospheric nitrogen, whereas fallow soils, 
oats, spurrey, mustard, &c., are not capable of 
fixing it. 
Two French chemists, Messrs. Arnaud and Charrin, 
have been devoting their attention to quite a new 
side in the natural history of microscopical germs 
and organisms. They find that the quantity of 
oxygen absorbed by them is in proportion to the 
quantity of carbonic acid gas evolved, In a vacuum, 
evolution of the latter gas takes place slowly. In 
an atmosphere ai pure carbonic acid there is no 
development of microbes. In hydrogen, on the con- 
trary, there is considerable development, with form- 
ation of ammonia. The quantity of nitrogen con- 
verted into ammonia by these organisms is some- 
times as much as 70 per cent. With asparagine it 
rises to over 90 per cent. The weight of the mic- 
robes and of the productions of their secretions was 
found to be considerably greater with gelatine than 
with asparagine. 
There are few questions which are more interest- 
ing to scientific agriculturists than the life-history 
and work of the micro-organisms in the soil. It is 
to them we owe the possibilities of a higher life. 
The old notion that plants could live on inorganic 
matter in the soil is not correct. Their plant food 
has to be prepared for them, and the bacteria pre- 
pared it. Mr. Miintz has recently shown that nitrites 
are only found in soils in very small quantities ; 
whilst on the other hand, when nitrifying organisms 
are introduced large quantities of nitrites are formed. 
Dilute solutions of calcium nitrite undergo no change 
when left in contact with oxygen for months. The 
simultaneously action of oxygen, or of the ordinary 
atmosphere and carbonic arid gas, on solutions of 
calcium nitrite completely converts it into nitrate. 
Oxygenation takes place wiien the nitrifying organ- 
isms are about. Mr. Miintz is of the opinion that 
the nitrifying organisms convert the nitrogen into 
nitrites, and that the latter are converted, without 
the further action of any organisms, into nitrates 
by the simultaneous action of the oxygen and car- 
bonic acid always present in soils. On the other 
hand, some of our best English investigators believe 
that the work of producing nitrites and nitrates is 
performed by two distinct species of soil bacteria. 
It is satisfactory to know that microbes are pretty 
much like ourselves — their are both good and bad 
among them. — Australasian. 
ORANGE RECIPES. 
Orange Fritters. — Make a nice light batter with 
one-half pound of flour, one-half ounce of butter, half 
a teaspoonful of salt, two eggs, and sufficient milk 
to give the proper consistency, which would be about 
one pint ; peel the oranges and divide each into eight 
pieces without breaking the thin skin ; dip each piece 
into the batter; have ready a pan of boiling lard or 
clarified dripping ; drop the oranges in this and fry 
a delicate brown — from eight to ten minutes. When 
done, lay them on a piece of white blotting-paper 
before the fire to drain away any greasy moisture 
that may remain, sprinkle them over with white 
sugar and serve hot. 
Orange Pudding.— Take the yolks of three eggs, one 
tablespoonful of cornflour, one breakfastcupful of 
powdered white sugar, one pint of milk ; make into 
a custard by allowing it to come to the boil to thicken. 
Peel and slice five oranges and put the slices into a 
pudding dish, with sugar sprinkled over each layer. 
While the custard is quite hot, pour it over the 
