4?6 
THE TROPICAL AQRIOULTURfST 
[January i, 1891, 
they now form ; and the bee fed on manufactured 
sugar might yield another kind of wax. 
But we may go one step further. We know that 
plants not only convert sugar into fat, starch, and 
woody fibre, but that in presence of certain minute 
organisms they form nitrogenous or albuminoid 
compounds such as the gluten of wheat. Suppos- 
ing it were possible to feed plants or these minute 
organisms on artificial sugar, differing in their pro- 
perties from their ordinary food, it might force the 
plant to manufacture a new kind of albumen. And 
then what new structures might not be expected to 
start up from the use of the new building material ? 
Chemistry would then, for the first time, bring her 
potent influence to bear upon the structure of orga- 
nised beings, and the changes ot form which would 
result might prove to be of the strangest and most 
unexpected kind — changes far more remarkable than 
all those, singular and far-rcaching though they be, 
caused by processes of artificial selection or of cross- 
breeding. The revelations of science have already 
outstripped the marvellous. What yet remains 
concealed in her bosom defies the wit of man to fore- 
tell. H. E. Roscoe. 
— The Speaker. 
• '■ ♦ 
SEWAGE AND SUGAR. 
Under this heading the Pall Mall has a paragraph 
which ought to promote a “ fierce boom ” as the 
writer says in Ceylon tea : — 
Dr. Richardson told a horrid story on Saturday 
night in his lecture on the progress of sanitary science. 
Years ago, he said, the sewage ot Londtn, or part of 
it, u ed to be taken to Jamaica iu barrels to manure 
the sugar gardens. The exporters of sewage thought 
it would be a pity to waste their barrels, or to bring 
them back empty; so the sdf same barrels were filled 
with a return cargo of raw sugar. The story needs 
1 0 comment, but it suggests two queries ; first, whether 
ve get rid of our sewage in a very much better way 
now, by turning it wholesale into the river ; and, 
secondly, whether there may not be today many pro- 
ducts of origin as tainted as was that of Jamaica sugar. 
Travellers for the interior of China tell very nasty tales 
about the personal habits of the coolies who tread the 
teaintenied for the use of the “ foreign devils,” Doubt- 
less boiling water removes a multitude of evils, but 
it does not kill imagination ; and if the confiding 
British citizen could see the feet beneath which his 
Chinese half-pound had passed, there would be a fierce 
booms iu “ ludias ” and “ Oeylons.” 
A NEW CEYLON PROJECT. 
Under the title ot the Ceylon and Oriental Investment 
Corporation, Limited, a company has been registered, 
witli a capital of £250,000, in 49,950 ordinary shares of 
£5 and 250 founders’ shares of £1 each. Its object 
is to acquire, by purchase or otherwise, and to lend 
or invest money at interest upon the security of 
lands of freehold, leasehold, or other tenure, stock, 
crops, plantations, tea gardens, buildings, mills, 
machinery and plants, mines, mining claims and rights, 
and mineral lands generally; documents of title, warrants 
iiierohandise, and other property in Ceylon India or else- 
where ; to carry on business as planters of tea, coffee, 
rice, cinchona, tobacco, or other produce. Ihe snb- 
soribera who take one share each are: — G. G. Artiulh- 
ni,t, 144, Winch: ster Himse, E 0.; H. C. Smith, Hay’s 
Wbarf, S.B. ; 0. B. .lohuston, 59, Cadogan Square, 
8. W.; J. H. Thti' g, Alford Castle, Carey. Soniersi t; 
H. A. Hancock, 28 Mliiciug Line; A. Zimmeru, 51, 
Lime Street, B.O.; S. H. Goodhart, 22 and 28, Grest 
Tower Street, K.O. Tin re shall not be less than three 
mr more than eight directors. The first are George G. 
Arbnthnot, Hamilton A. Hancock, Cyril ID. Johnston, 
Charles A. Keiss, and J. Huntley Thring. Qualifioa- 
tii.u, £500. Remuueratiun, £1,000, divisible. — H. and 
C. Mail. 
CEYLON AND ITS PRODUCTS. 
TROPICAL AGRICULTURE. 
I have more than once, before now, favourably 
noticed the very admirably compiled “ Handbook of 
Ceylon,” periodically issued from the Colombo Press, 
by Messrs. A. M. and J. Ferguson ; and the volume 
now before me for 1890 91 is in wealth of matter, 
arrangement, and general get-up, superior to any of 
its predecessors. 
There ate few colonies so fortunate in their chro- 
nicler. Certainly no tropical colony in the world is 
so well furnished with a complete directory, probably 
because no other colony has hem furnished with such 
a Ferguson. For full 30 years the work has made its 
appearance at stated periods. At first (in 1859) a tiny 
booklet of 100 leaves modestly apologising for its 
“thickness”! Now, without a blush, its red and gold 
covers firmly clasp over 1,400 pages of closely-printed 
matter. And such matter ! The carefully accumu- 
lated cream of 30 years’ brain-work. The agricultural, 
financial, and statistical experience of a lifetime; all 
pertaining to the most successful of our Crown colo- 
nies, and contributing by its accurate information, 
not a little to the continued prosperity of this our 
leading Crown colony. Every public library, and 
every individual in any way connected with the Spicy 
isle, ought to possess a copy of this comprehensive work. 
But of even more interest to the general 
reader will be the complete volume for 1889- 
90 of the “ Tropical Agriculturist,” a copy of 
which has also reached me from the same press. 
This is, as far as I am aware, an entirely unique 
work. For while in Europe our press teems with 
“ Farmer’s Journals” and works on the agriculture 
and horticulture of our temperate regions, this is 
the only periodical devoted exclusively to Tro- 
pical products ; a field at once so absorbing, inter- 
esting, and extensive, that the marvel is that its special 
advocate and chronicle has been so long in coming. 
Perhaps no man so admirably fitted for the work of 
editing such a periodical had before taken root in the 
Tropics. His keen observation, restless energy, and 
facility for extracting the essence of all that is known 
of every conceivable tropical product, gave John Fer- 
guson a peculiar fitness for the post — a fitness which 
he labours so assiduously to improve. 
Here will be four d from time to time all that is in- 
teresting to planters, and all that pertains to the rich 
and varied products of tropical and semi-tropical lands, 
their cultivation and preparation for the market, where 
and hew to sell or buy, and how best to use at home. 
From New Guinea to Peru every important scrap of 
information is gathered and husbanded, while the East 
and West Indies, Africa and Brazil, are ransacked for 
new, or suitable soil, in which to grow the old luxuries 
or necessaries of modern life. Not many years ngo 
the preparation of so common an article as tea 
was enveloped in mystery — now China itself has 
been turned inside out A dozen years ago the cultiva- 
tion of such precious plants as coco, cacao, cincliona, 
oubebs, cardamoms, &c„ was little known ; the varied 
preparations from the palm tree were little heard of, 
and the magnificent flora of these warm humid regions 
sealed up from the general reader. Now all is here 
treated in a manner at once attractive to the million, 
useful to the man of business, and deeply interesting 
to the scientist. Ceylon, indeed, is now coming to be 
recognised as the experimental garden, or model from 
par excellence for the tropics; and its lot may be to 
bring about many marvellous changes as to the source 
of our supplies. Twelve years ago, for instance, not an 
ounce of chocolate had ever been shipped from the 
East. True, our good old friend, Mr. R. B. Tytler, 
bad for years his pet little chocolite field, which he 
liked to iliow to his special friends, and joke over the 
possible fortune of tlie future. And many a fair castle 
have I heard him build as the fragrant smoke rose like 
incense from hi.s lips ! But it was not till the collapse 
of coflfee that he thought seriously ot exlendingthe 
cultivation of cacao and acquiring the necessary know- 
ledge of its preparation. R. B. T. did nothing by 
halves. “I’m off to Trinidad to see how it’s done,’’ 
