THE TROP!OAL AdRIOULTURiST. [June i, 1829. 
their villages. Frequently the engagment is renewed 
with advances, to be vforked off as before. No sys- 
tem of agriculture, more especially tropical agriculture 
can be carried on successfully if dependant for its 
labour upon a supply so fitful and so fcanty. It is of 
importance, therefore, to introrluce a class of emigrante 
who wouM have neither the desire io leave, nor thw 
means of leaving, their employment, excepting at 
fixed perioia of soma duration and undur definite 
engagements. On the coast there are still numbers of 
Chinese emigrants whose engagements date bacli raauy 
years. These however, are dying out ; they are not 
being reolaced, and it will become a matter of serious 
consequence to all employers of labour thould tliere 
not, at some early date, be preparatit ns ma'le to 
supplement them, as well as to arrange for an iucreaf- 
ing supply from Cuina or India. 
Chinese we found to be excellent labourers if kept 
away from centres of populatiou. As it is not proposed 
to tike them to or keep them near any town or 
village, but to settle them where in tha interior agri. 
cultural work will engage their time and attention, 
ro hesitation should be felt in regard to their intro- 
duction in large numbers, or in making arrangements 
for a constant supply of a people whose chnracteristics 
are excessive thrift and untiring industry ; by whom 
too, the beutfits accruing from theao are so kesnly 
appreciated. 
Indian, i. c, Hindoo or Tamil coolie laborers, and 
their families, if introduced, would also prove a source 
of wealth to the country, improving as well their own 
ccndition as that of their employers. 
Of the Tamils we have long personal experience, and 
we are convinced, that with their aid, and under the 
skilled direction to those accustomed to work them 
the fine slopes of the Perene, and any other part of 
Pesu where tropical agriculture might be tried, would 
speedily be rendered productive and valuable. 
Unquestionably numbers would elect to settle in a 
country, and amid surroundings, so congenial to their 
wants and desires. 
There can be no objection on the part of employers 
to give sucli guarantees as would both satisfy the Go- 
vernment of India, and secure to the coolie all the bene- 
fits of profitable, healthy and constant employment 
in country, the climate of which — from our Ceylon 
experience we are assured of it — is so free from malaria 
and in all respects so suitable to his mode of life. 
PERU AS A FIELD FOR COLONIZATION. 
This land of the ancient Inca has such vast unde- 
veloped resources, at altitudes and temperatures so 
varied, that people fFom every known climate might 
here find a congenial home ; and we cannot conceive 
of any healthier, more interesting or profitable oc- 
cupation for European agriculturists, with a little 
capital, than might be found on the borders of the 
great grassy pampas, at an altitude of 4,000 feet and 
upwards, where a mixed cultivation might be intro- 
duced, including cereals, potatoes and other vegetables, 
around the homesteads, with a field of coffee or coca 
below, all interesting and profitable to the grower. 
It is only to be regi'etted that so little is known in 
Lima of these localities, and that the facilities for ap- 
proaching them have hitherto been so indifferent. 
With tbe opeuiug of tbe Oroja railway, however, 
all tbi? will be chai.ged, and the prospect of sued ssful 
coloniasatio l rendered such as was never before pos- 
Bible in Peru. 
For trained planters, with a command of labour, 
and judiciously backed by capiialists, we believe, 
tliere is not iu the wide world a bettor opening tLau 
in the upper valleys of the Amazon aii l its Peruvian 
tribatorioi. We are, Gei tlemen, 
Your obedient Servants, 
Alexander Koss; 
Arthur Sinclair. 
VOmmU FARMING IN INDIA. 
P.V A IjADY CoNTRIDIITOJl. 
Ho many people who liavc tried poultry farming 
out here have told inc tliat, leaving time and trouble 
out of the quoHtioi), it never pays and in, in most cases, 
II. dead lostt, lu the icariu^ iiud sclliug pidiuaiy 
fowls only, I most certainly agree with them : as a 
native can always undersell a European, especially 
in livestock, as natives seldom give their animals a 
regular meal. In the case of chir-kens, a few grains 
of boiled rice and some crumbs of chnjjati left from his 
own meal are thrown to them and they are left to 
find what they can for themselves. A native can 
afford to sell a roast fowl from four to six annas, 
where we should be sorry to part with one for four- 
teen annas or a rupee. So it is really ahuost impos- 
sible for us to compete with them. The only way 
in which to make a poultry farm pay, and I find it 
pays me handsomely, is to keep everything, fowls, 
guinea-fowls, ducks, geese, turkeys and pigeons. For 
those who go in for gardening on a large scale this 
is not feasible, unless their grounds are unusually 
large, and then both the kitchen and flower, garden 
should be hedged in or railed off in some way, other- 
wise the fowls, ducks and more especially, ' guinea- 
fowls make fearful havoc in it. The only two ways 
I know of preventing this are, if you have a large 
compound, to make the fowl-house in the opposite 
direction of the gardens and at a good distance, or 
the bettter plan is to keep a small boy and make 
him guard the entrance to the garden. 
My plan of housing the poultry is to make a large 
rough mud house, have it scraped and smoothed down 
and white-washed inside and out, with a tiled roof ; the 
house is divided into six separate rooms with a door 
and window opposite each other in every room, ex- 
cepting in the pigeon room, which has only one door ; 
every door has a trap so that the -peuitry can go in 
and out at will during the day. 
In the first room I put all the cocks and hens be- 
sides the cockerels and poulets over two months old 
at night giving them perches and boxes and not 
overcrowding them. The second room is given to 
the ducks, geese and guinea-fowls; perches are put 
up for the latter and straw placed on the floor for 
the two former, as they generally lay at night or 
very early in the morning. The third house belongs 
to the turkeys, and the fom-th to the pigeons, in the 
wall of which I have large holes made in which they lay 
and bring up their young. The fifth room is planked 
off into four compartments which I shall call A. B. C. 
and D. for convenience. In A. all the chickens under 
two months old are kept from sixty to seventy and 
sometimes more. In B. I put a goose who is given 
all the goslings, which she readily takes. In C. I 
place a couple of large boxes with high sides perfora- 
ted with small holes into which I put all the duck- 
lings, D. belongs to the guinea chicks with their adop- 
ted mothers — a couple or three pens (not guinea fowls). 
The sixth room is kept for all and only setting 
hens. Sometimes twenty or more boxes are placed 
on the floor and baskets hung firmly against the 
sides of the wall ; in these they sit and hatch their 
eggs. 
Every morning at half-past five o'clock all the doors 
of the fowl-house are opened, and all the poultry 
dare let out, fed, and allowed to wander over the 
grounds till evening, a small boy looking after all the 
different broods of chickens, ducklings, &c. These are 
fed three times a day on good sound crushed grain- 
greens and table scraps with a little meat twice a 
week, and are locked up from 11 am. to 2 p.m. 
during the hour of the day, while the boy in charge 
has his food and a rest. All the six rooms are 
carefully swept and thoroughly cleaned every morn- 
ing, and a layer of fresh ashes put into each. The 
native servants each getting an old kerosine tin for 
collecting them in, so that there is always a large 
supply of ashes in hand. The sitting hens are given 
plenty of good sound grain and fresh water every 
morning, and are then allowed to roam about for 
an hour after which they are brought back, and 
locked up till the next morning, being fed once iu 
twenty-four hours, and having one hour's exercise 
when they generally take their dust baths. Duck- 
lings are considered difficult to rear, but I find mine 
do very well, they are fed on chaiiati soaked in 
water, hard boiled duck's eggs with a little boiled 
rice of the cheapest kind, till they are a fortnight 
old, when they got bran, crushed grain and potatoe 
peelings. 
