THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[November i, 1890. 
368 
can be indisputably upset. During the week oppor- 
tunity has been afforded me to test specimens of 
the grass which have been long subjected to steeping 
in water) n.j. It was possible to draw from the 
stalks so treated two very distinct characteristics of 
fibre. Those stalks which were well matured gave 
a long and comparatively tough fibre ; those of 
a more immature growth yielded a very short fibre 
on being separated by the fingers, and this broke 
readily. It, therefore, seems very feasible that Dr. 
Evans’s suggestion that the two lots of grass ex- 
perimented upon had been gathered at different 
stages of growth, and that the fact might account 
for the variance in result obtained during the 
experiments made, may have been a correct one. 
But at present this point remains undecided. It 
has been told me that a proposal has been made 
to the Stauley-Wrightson t'yndieate that it should 
take steps to obtain from Ceylon a complete collection 
of samples of wild growing grasses, each sample 
to be distinctly labelled with all possible informa- 
tion regarding stage of growth, locality of production, 
&c., and that these should be submitted to careful 
laboratory testing. This proposal bears a close 
analogy to what a previous letter by me recom- 
mended ; and if it be acted upon information might 
be obtained which would be likely to prove ex- 
tremely useful in determining what grasses that 
your island affords would prove most economically 
useful for the purposes the Syndicate has in view. 
Only this week a conversation was had by me 
with a gentleman well versed in tramway en- 
gineering relative to the best methods for working 
any system of tramways which may eventually 
be adopted in your larger cities and towns. On 
my mentioning electricity as offering to my mind 
the best method, he remarked “Perhaps you 
may not be aware of a very serious difficulty which 
has lately been discovered as to this course. It 
is found that unless a very heavy expense is gone 
to for the insulation of tramway lines, probably 
£1,000 a mile— the earth in the neighbourhood of 
such electrically-worked lines becomes polarized 
over a large area, and no telephone wires or any 
other telegraphic system using the earth for return 
currents can be worked. Experiments have shown 
that this polarization of the ground in the vicinity 
of strong currents such as those used for electric 
propulzion extends to almost an unknown distance, 
and in America there has been a complete stoppage 
resulting to the working of some of the ocean cables. 
This is a matter which is likely to disincline Govern- 
ments to sanation electric tramways, especially in 
cases when the telegraph or telephone is their pro- 
perty.” As we hope Colombo is not to be left much 
longer without its local tramway system, one which 
would prove of great service to the residents in a 
place covering so large an area as your capital city 
does, it will be as well that this recently discovered 
objection to the use of electricity upon them should 
be known and be well-considered when the question 
of the means of working them is being diecussed. 
— London Cor. 
— ♦ 
Coffee in .Iava. — The opening statement by the 
Minister of the Colonies to the States-General in 
Holland is not so cheerful about Netherlands India 
as could be hoped. The serious failure in the yield 
o£ colfee is at the root of all trouble, and will cause 
a serious deficit in the Government accounts, 
reckoned at twenty millions of guilders. Nor is 
the loss only confined to the Government, for the 
commercial community and the natives feel the 
situation. It is satisfactory to note that the Govern- 
ment will not have to borrow, however, and that 
irrigation works and the extension of railways will 
not be thrown back. They are both to be proceeded 
with.— L. and C, Exirrm, 
Wet and Dey. — T he Style district of Cumber- 
land is the rainiest in the kingdom, and the Dingwall 
district of Boss shire the driest. 175 inches a year is 
the mean fall in the one place ; 14'57 is the mean in 
the other. — Eod and Gun. [This statement surprises 
us ; for we had seen it stated that the records 
of over half-a-century showed that the highest average 
annual fall of rain was 117 inches on the Cumberland 
range and that the lowest fall was in Durham, 
not more than 20 miles due East of the scene of 
the maximum, and was about 17 inches — Ed. T. A,} 
Discolobation and other Affections of Tea 
Leaves. — It is natural after their experience of 
coffee that Ceylon planters should be particularly 
sensitive about any evil appearance in their tea 
leaves especially when such may recur after 
an interval and perhaps in the same locality. 
We hear of nothing of the kind generally, but 
every now and then we have an inquiry about 
discolored or punctured leaves which are puzzling 
to account for and which may look like the 
beginning of a minor pest. It is, therefore, satis- 
factory to be able to publish the following letter 
from the Director of the Boyal Botanic Gardens in 
answer to one such inquiry by a planter living at a 
medium elevation. Dr. Trimen writes to our friend ; — 
Peradeniya, Oct. 2nd. 
Dear Sir, — In reply to your letter of yesterday, I 
may say at once that I do not think there is anything 
seriously the matter with your tea. Such little patches, 
spots or pimples of unhfalthy or dead tissue are very 
common on nearly all leaves of an evergreen character 
especially when of some age, and are quite compatible 
with the good general health of the plant, as they do 
not materially interfere with the functions of the 
leaves as a whole. 
I notice that the younger leaves you send are scarcely 
at all affected. 
What may be the actual cause of the local affection 
of the leaves I am not able to say, probably some 
irritation from the presence of minute insects, the 
scorching of sun after rain, &c. 
The condition is, I think, scarcely of sufficient im- 
portance to warrant the name of “ disease,” though 
such a term is technically justifiable. — Yours faithfully, 
Henhv Tbimen. 
The Chaeacteeistic Inteiiperancr of the Indian 
climate — says the Pioneer _ of the 16th ult., — has 
been carried so far during the present rainy 
season that the weather reports land us in the 
region of paradox. It is the standing objection 
to India that for eight and a half months in the 
year it is far too dry, and for the remainder far 
too wet : but during the present season an unusually 
large rainfall has been compressed into little more 
than two months, and complaints of droughts are 
abroad before the monsoon in the ordinary course 
should be nearly over. Districts showing far more 
than the whole of their average annual allowance 
of rain are already crying out that unless more 
comes there will be no autumn crops. Districts that 
were mostly under water in the middle of August 
are by the middle of September complaining that 
it will be impossible to sow. Within a month the 
tone of the Provincial Summary has changed from “a 
break urgently needed ” to ‘‘ rain urgently needed,” 
and that through every district. The next few days 
will show how far this urgency has been met by the 
showers which have come in the nickof time to the 
Allahabad Division. But Lower Bengal, still more 
unfortunate, is suffering simultaneously from the 
effect of both extremes. Through the Burdwan and 
Chota Nagpur Divisions the winter rice crop is said to 
be suffering badly from drought, while in other parts 
of the Province both autumn and winter rice have 
been apparently destroyed by fioods. In Murshidabad, 
Jessore and Nuddea the damage from this cause is 
BO severe that relief baa already become neoeesary, 
