October i, 1890.] THE TROPICAL AQRICULTURIST. -185 
positions in the valleys and districts mentioned, as 
Ill'S inches for the year 1888. Highest rainfall 171 '89 
inches, lowest rainfall 82'18 inches. The mean temper- 
ature at six stations for 1888 is 81°'8. 
To practical men comment on these returns is 
suparfluous. The rainfall, varying as it does, leaves 
the choice open to them of fields suitable to the 
various products : tobacco, coffee, cocoa, tea, or the 
different spices — nutmegs, cloves, cardamoms, pepper, 
&c.; while the temperature forces a growth which will 
tax the best soil and utmost skill of the planter to 
keep up with. 
Labor . — It is not necessary to proclaim the virtues 
of the Tamil cooly as a laborer. Suffice it to 
say the lowest wages fixed by law are 14 and 16 
cents for a male laborer, 12 and 10 cents for a 
female laborer, rates for food being fixed likewise. 
The loss on recruiting is trifling compared to what 
other countries less favourably situated have to suffer. 
Facilities for Transport. — Perak| is roughly estimated 
as 120 miles long by 90 miles broad. Steamers call 
daily at Port Weld and Telick Anson the Northern 
and Southern ports of this limited area. The rivers 
Krian and Bernama, at the extreme North and South 
of the country, has been, and is being, traversed by 
railways, canals, macadamised cart-roads, and six foot 
bridle tracks, in a way which would be marvellous in 
a less progressive age, and under a less able and en- 
ergetic administeration, guided as it is by a far-seeing 
policy. 
All that is necessary for the rapid development of 
tbe agricultural wealth of this State is that Perak 
should be known to Capitalists at home.” — Local 
*• Times.” 
4 
THE TOBACCO PLANT. 
The London Journal of the Societ;/ o/ /I rfs, January 
3, noting that the tobacco plant “'is grown and em- 
ployed as a narcotic in almost every ctiiutry in the 
world,” and that about “ one-fourth of the human family 
use it,” adds : 
” It is somewhat difficult to obtain trustworthy in- 
formation regarding the world’s trade iu tobacco, 
because so much is used up locally in different 
countries. It is probab'e that tho total area under 
tobacco is not far short of 6,OUU,000 acres. For the 
year 1886 certain official return.s are available, which 
show that the United States, India and Hungary are 
the largest producers. The area under tobacco in 
acres was in 
United States 762.520 
India... 641,000 
Hungary and Austria. 149,468 
Germany 49,312 
France 37,156 
Algeria '20,478 
Italy 1-2,061 
Holland 3,218 
Total acres. ..2, 106, 213 
“The consumption of tobacco in the United 
Kingdom is large and progressive, and the revenue 
derived from it last year was nearly £8,750,000. 
The average consumption is largest in Holland — 
nearly 7 pounds per head ; iu tho United States about 
43 pounds ; iu Hungary, Denmark, Belgium and 
Germany from 3 to 3J pounds, in the Australian 
colonies it is also high— 3J pounds ; in France it is 
about 2 pouuds, and in tho United Kingdom under 
li pounds. 
The yearly productiou of tobacco in Cuba is 
about 300,000 bales, and 181,000,000 cigars aie also 
exported. Tho Spaniards have hitherto monopolized 
tho traile iu cigars, alleging that parts of the soil of 
Ouba were alone suited to the productiou of Havana 
tobacco. This assertion is now disproved, for with 
good choice of seed, soil and leaf, and skilled manu- 
facture, Jamaica is said now lo send into tho market 
as excellent a cigar as was ever shipped from Havana, 
and at a far cheaper rate. In the Philippines 100,006 
cwl. of tobacco are produced. The Dutch possessions 
iu the Eisteru Archipelago slop a large quautity of 
e.Kcelleut tobacco, whioli is lield iu high reputo in 
Europe. Tlie imports of Sumatra tobacco in Holland 
now average 140, OQO bales, and of Java tobacco 130,000 
bales, 
“ Althongh there are about fifty species of tho 
genus Nicotiaua known, only three or four are much 
cultivated for the leaf. The two principal commer- 
cial forms are by some botanists treated as varieties, 
and not as distinct ,‘ipeoies * * * Madras, where 
the climate is admirably suited for the growth of 
tobacco, stands first with regard lo the development 
of this industry in India. Diniiigul is the great 
tobacco district, and cheroots are manufactured at 
Trichinopoli. The islands iu the delta of the Goda- 
very also yield what is called lunk tobacco, the 
climate being suitable, and the plants are raised in 
rather poor light soil, highly manured and well watered. 
No belter evidence could be afforded of the universal 
use of this plant than the extensive display which 
Was made of it in every section of the Paris Ex- 
hibition.” — Lradstreet’s, 
4 
AMIIEKSTIA NOB [LIS. 
It is now fifty years since this magnificent plant 
was introduced from India into England. Its fame 
had become known from a description by Dr. Wallich, 
who found it in 1827 in Martaban, growing along with 
Jonesia Asoca, another splendid-flowered leguminous 
tree. Writing of the Amheratia, Wallich said: “The 
largest of the two trees I found was forty feet high, with 
a girth of six feet near the base. Both were profusely 
ornamented with pendulous racemes of large vermiliou- 
oolored blossoms forming superb objects, unequaled in 
the flora of the Bast Indies, and 1 presume, not 
surpassed in magnificence and elegance in any part of 
tbe world.” Many futile attempts had been made to 
introduce this plant into English gardens before the 
Duke of Devonshire sent a collector specially for it, 
and succeeded iu importing and establishing a plant in 
the famous Chatsworth Gardens. This plant is still 
alive. But the Duke was not the first to flower the 
Amlierstia, a small plant in the collection of Lady 
Lawrence, at Ealing, flowering first in 1884. Tho 
first raceme that developed was sent to the Queen, 
and the second to Kew for figuring in the Botanical 
Magazine. A plant now in the Kew collection— 
orgmally, I believe, a cutting from the Ealing speci- 
men — has produced a few flowers on several occasions 
within the last ten years, and it is in bloom now. 
The racemes, five iu number, are pendulous, two to three 
feet long, and bearing from fifteen to thirty flowers, 
each of which has a drooping pedicel six inches 
long, bearing a pair of large wing-like bracts four inches 
from its base, the flower being four inches across, and 
composed of four spreading sepals, five unequal petals, 
three of them large, and in the position usually oc- 
cupied by the standard in the flower of an ordinary 
Legume. The stamens are uuited at the base, and 
form a long curved tube. The color of the whole 
flower, bracts, pedicel and all is the richest vermilion 
or vivid scarlet, with blotches of rich lemon-yellow 
and a faint bluish tinge on the standard-like petals. 
In habit and foliage the plant resembles Brownea or 
jonesia. The temperature supposed to be essential to 
this plant is from seventy to eighty degrees, with 
a bottom heat of ninety degrees, but the Kew plant 
is growing iu a house devoted principally to Aroida 
and Tree-ferns, along with the largest of which it is 
planted out iu an unheated but well-drained bed of 
soil. The tempeiatuie maintained in this house in 
winter is sixty-five degrees in severe weather, whilst 
in summer it ranges from seventy to eighty-five 
degrees. This is precisely what one keeps an ordinary 
stove at. Evidently, therefore, Amlierstia may be 
grown and flowered iii any house devoted to tropical 
plants. The Kew specimen is about ten feet high, — 
Garden and Forest. 
MINOK rilODUCTS IN CHINA. 
As an illustration of the value of some of the so- 
called “Minor products” iu tropical countries, 1 may 
point to the fact that ground iiiic cakes — that is the 
residue or mace after the expression of the oil from 
tbe seeds of Arachis hypogrea — is exported from 
Kiuugchow in Chius, to the extent of over 1,000 tuns 
snnually. In 1888, there was exported from this port 
