THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[August i, 1890, 
to6 
■1. 
The Government is endeavouring to attract some of 
the pearl dredgers from Sulu but hitherto although they 
accepted the terms offered they show no disposition to 
Come although some of their chiefs believe our East 
boast to be quite as rich as any other in the Sulu Sea. 
CEYLON UPCOUNTEY PLANTING REPORT 
WEATHER — PEPPEE-GKOWINa — LIBERIAN AND COOEG 
coffee — ARABIAN COFFEE FERE OP LEAF DISEASE THIS 
YEAR. 
July 4th. 
Our preset!* weather is simply too much of a 
good thing, and although Bamasami pretends to 
be up to a dodge which could bring about a change 
— that of having a day’s outing with Muniandi, 
at the master's expense, rain to be certain after 
that 1 — things have not reached that point of despair 
with us yet, that would justify the adoption of it. 
Nevertheless it looks very like as if the south-west 
monsoon of 1890 was to be lost to Oeylon. It 
does not tend to make matters any more bearable 
to hear that other places were getting their 8.-W. 
rain all right; and that at sea the weather is 
heavy with rain and to spare. Our monsoon must 
have gone galavanting somewhere, breaking through 
its character for steady respectability by thus adopt- 
ing a profligate career. I wish it would repent 
and come back. It would be as welcome as the 
prodigal, and as rejoiced over. In these districts 
our streams are getting lower and lower, the rains 
we have had, proving wholly insufficient to 
meet the strain of such dry weather immediately 
after the hot months : plants which have been 
put out, are having a terribly rough time of it, 
and except that tea is flushing, all the usual 
work at this season might be said to be at a 
stand-still. 
We will know ‘ All About Pepper ’ by and bye. 
Meanwhile some who have tried it, as an auxiliary 
to other things, are not so very enthusiastic as 
they were. A good healthy pepper vine is found 
to be more than a match for a sturdy jack, and 
seems to be capable of sucking the life out of it. 
In time the jack will show nought but bare poles 
after a struggle for existence, more or less pro- 
longed. Some of us had not quite calculated on 
this masterful spirit on the part of the pepper 
and would have preferred to have seen a willingness 
to live and let live. 
It becomes a question worth considering, if in a 
place where shade is needed, and pepper for a time 
may be successfully grown, it is wise to grow it 
and run the risk of having your needful shade 
killed out 7 Will the profit made by the pepper 
compensate 7 I don’t pretend to be able to answer 
these questions ; but there is no harm in asking 
them. 
The under-current in favour of Coffee still flows 
vigorously, and especially the one that makes for 
the Liberian variety. Every now and again you 
fall in with a man who has been agreeably 
lUrprise d by what his Liberian coffee has done for 
him, and who is doing a little extending on 
the quiet. It wants so little culture, and can stand 
such an amount of hard usage, that Liberian 
coffee might have been expected to have been a 
favourite with the Sinhalese villagers. I fancy it is 
the trouble of planting which prevents its tak- 
ing its place among the village favourites. If it 
had not had such an abominable bark-like pulp, 
very likely the monkeys would have proved useful, 
and gradually extended the cultivation 1 Ooorg coffee 
too ia being tried more extensively than it has been 
for some time, but what is it after all? Pretty 
much a kind of planting dilettanteism. A man 
gets over a bushel or two of seed, and a few acres 
are put in, but the full-hearted loyalty which was 
given to king coffee in the days of old, has died out. 
Coorg coffee seed comes up well, and if all who 
have ordered this variety have had as excellent 
results, as I have seen in nurseries grown from 
seed procured from Mr. Hunt of Mercara, they must 
be fully satisfied. Every seed seemed to have 
germinated, and the plants were vigorous and 
strong. 
By the way what there is remaining of Arabian 
coffee has been singularly free of leaf disease 
this year. Not that the old enemy is not 
about, it is still there, but the old force seems to 
be diminished. Perhaps the abnormal season we 
have been passing through may have something to 
do with it. 
Peppercorn. 
COCONUT PLANTING IN CHILAW DISTRICT. 
suspension of ST. anna’s festival this year RIGHTLY 
URGED IN VIEW OF PREVALENCE OF CHOLERA. 
Rajakadaluwa, Chilaw, July let, 
The S.-W. moosoon has been almost a failure 
as regards rain, and while this is hard on vegeta- 
tion (though our young trees are standing it re- 
markably well) the dry weather is all in favour 
of felling operations, which are pretty general 
throughout this part. Coolies are already talking 
of “ St. Anna’s” pilgrimage : surely Government 
will find it convenient to stop or restrict the 
festival for this year, on account of the fearful 
reports from Southern India. To have our labour 
enticed away at a busy time ia bad enough, but of 
this we don’t complain ; the real grievance lies 
in the needless risk incurred of a general epidemic ; 
and it seems almost miraculous that we have been 
so mercifully spared each year, so far. An outbreak 
of cholera would be but a poor commentary on 
physical cures said to be effected at St. Anna’s 
shrine.— The coconuts hereabouts on the last clear- 
ing are giving great promise : they are better than 
any I have seen yet at that age. 
^ 
INDIAN FISHES.* 
[We have been meditating a notice of the book 
referred to in this review, but we feel we cannot 
do better for publishers or readers than quote the 
remarks of the writer in the 'Indian Agriculturist 
—Ed. T. a.] 
A melanoboly interest attaches to these volumes. 
When the Secretary of State for India determined to 
authorise the publication of a series of compendious 
handbooks on the vertebrate fauna of Bcitisb India at 
a cost which should place them within the reach of all 
likely to be interested in such subjects, the fishes were 
committed, as a matter of course, to Dr. Francis Day, 
late Deputy Surgeon-General of Madras, the greatest 
living authority on the subject. He took up the work 
with characteristic enthusisam, but a life spent in 
brilliant and scantily recognised services to the cause 
of science was even then drawing near its close. In- 
pain and weakness he laboured on, finished his manu- 
script, and corrected the proofs of the first volume. 
Then he was obliged to desist, and almost on the day 
when that volume issued from the press he passed 
away. The second volume was put through the press- 
* “ The Fauna of British India, including Ceylon and 
Burmah,’’ published under the authority of the Secre- 
tary of State for India in Council, edited by W. T. 
Blanford. “Fishes,” by Francis Day, c.i.e., ll.d.. &c., 
Deputy Surgeon-General, Madras Army (retired). Taylor 
and Francis, Red Lion Court, Fleet-street, London. 
