480 
tHf TROPldAU AGRICULTURISt. [January i, i8gt. 
gust, when the spike was about 6 inches long, som e 
visitor cut it off with a blunt knife, and I found it 
on the ground. The flowers were all formed, and 
the structure exactly as described by Sir W. Hooker 
in the Botanical Magazine. I hope my other tree will 
jirovo 9 , but that is much younger.” 
Sir John Kirk also succeeded in establishing the 
palm in bis garden at Zanzibar. 
The Government of the Seychelles has long watched 
with care the preservalion of the existing groves of 
the palm, and pains are now taken to fertilize the female 
plants artificially, and to plant the seeds. — W. T. T. D.J 
— Nature. 
♦ 
iMK. E. ELLIOTT ON THE COST OF 
HADHY GEOAVING. 
Mr. Elliot writes in answer to enquiries from the 
local “Times”:— 
“ You and others, I find, misunderstand the scope 
and intention of my experimental cultivation and the 
publication of the results. The primary object is of 
course to show those amongst whom we are working 
that, by using the ploughs and incurring some little 
additional outlay quite within their means, much better 
crops can be secured. At the same time I have 
endeavoured to discover the cost of growing paddy, work- 
ing on a ready money basis. I have necessarily had 
to work rather expensively with native assistants, on 
whose outlay I have a very imperfect check and who 
do not stint the cultivation. In spite of this my Galle 
experiment worked to B16 per acre (exclusive of taxes), 
and at Nintavur it worked out to R17'50. The in- 
formation thus acquired is, 1 think, valuable, for it 
refutes the absurd estimates of the cost of cultivation 
advanced by many, such for instance as that given by 
Mr, Panabokke for Saffragam to the Grain Tax Oom- 
mittee. 
“I have also given the return I got at Ninvtaur 
and shown that I went into a village, hired at current 
rates a parcel of land, cultivated it, and made a 
profit of R694 on an outlay of R612 in under six 
months (rent and taxes were paid after crop as custo- 
mary and so entailed no outlay.) This was done in 
an unfavorable year, but in an irrigated district. This 
is the broad fact I wish to make known. Everybody 
can utilize my figures and see how they would be 
affected by the surroundings under which he can, 
or does, undertake paddy cultivation — for instance 
the district in which he hires the laud ; if he can 
or will or is obliged to do without irrigation ; if he 
has his own money and cattle to work with, or must 
burrow and if so at what rate. 
“ These differ in each case and in every district, 
and evarybody must work them out for himself, I 
consequently made no allowance for cost of land, 
interest &o ; and as for contingencies the crop was a 
moderate one. For machinery I had only 5 iron 
ploughs and 4 native ploughs costing altogether about 
R40, on which I have charged R10 75 for depreciation 
and repairs ; they are available for future operations. 
“ I added particulars of my other experiments to be 
perfectly above board and also to shew that, even in 
an unprecedented year of failure, there had been secur- 
ed a profit (exclusive of rent, but after providing for 
taxes) of R819 on an outlay of Rl,441 from 84 acres of 
land. 
“ A man can and dees in this district cultivate 7 to 
10 acres at one time, so that if the culiivators had been 
also the owners of the lands each would have had R70 
to iUOO to go with ; but if the cultivators were not 
the landowners they would have probably had to pay 
about this for rent and had nothing beyond their wages 
for the time they were employed. 
“ 1 have my own views regarding paddy cultivation as 
carried on by natives, but cannot enter fully into them 
here except to say that, the more I look into it, the 
more am I convinced 'it pays’ and if carried out on 
a proper basis it is probably the best paying produce 
ever grown in Ceylon. Just as with tea, coffee &c,, 
there are places and circumstances under which paddy 
growing will not pay, and where it ought not to be 
tried; but this does not affect the real question. Still 
another branch of the question is whom does it pay 
as carried on by natives. This is a very difficult matter 
to say between non-resident landlords, money-lenders, 
and untrustworthy tenants ; but because one cannot 
answer that question do not jump to the conclusion 
that ‘ paddy does not pay ’. Again, in discussing the 
resources of these engaged in this branch of agriculture 
remember even in Ceylon “ man does not live by paddy 
alone” — or by one cultivation per year. It is only one 
of bis occupations in Ceylon. 
Pray do not mix up my experiments with these 
considerations. My figures 1 think place beyond doubt 
that paddy can be made to pay handsomely. Others 
who have gone into the question and worked on a 
proper basis will tell yon the same. Mr. Julian Dias 
told me recently it pays him 25 per cent, on the se’l- 
ing price of his field, and that no paddy land in the 
AA’estern Province is worth less than RI50 per acre — 
here R50 is a very good average price. The Kegalle 
Mudaliyar’s experience also supports my views. If 
therefore any class allege paddy does not pay there 
are collateral reasons which must be searched for and 
examined, and the whole industry should not be decried 
wholesale, as is done in some quarters, because the 
expectations of any class interested are at times not 
realized.” 
THE BAIiIBOO. 
There are countries where it seems to supply almost 
every human requirement, and where the feathery 
masses of its foliage, drooping, like the weeping willow 
over road and river and village, bespeak an ideal of 
life beyond the reach of less primitive communities. 
Here man is unspoiled by artificial wants, untouched 
by the march of thought or of science, and nature 
unsolicited supplies with lavish band his simple needs. 
It is an ideal which it seems almost sacrilege to 
disturb, and in presence of which the highest aim 
of the foreign intruder should be to preserve its 
primary conditions intact. No better example can 
be cited of the land of the Bamboo than one of those 
Indo-Chinese provinces, of which Burmah is the 
best known to Europeans. 
Like the fir in northen climates, it is the bamboo 
which here gives an unmistakable stamp to the rural 
landscape, while it is literally the framework and 
foundation of nearly every work of man. It is no 
exaggeration to say that the same jungles which give 
cover to wild animal life of every form and tribe, exert 
a beneficent influence also on every step of life of 
their human inhabitants. 
The Burmese child plays with bamboo toy's in a 
house of which roof and walls and floors are for the 
most part made from the same generous plant. 
Through boyhood and manhood and old age this 
helpful comrade is ever by his side. On land or 
water, in peace or war, in the homes of rich and 
poor, in art and manufacture, in the market and 
the field, at feast and funeral, this is the substance 
of all that man most needs and values for ornament 
or use. 
Town and villages are built from its stems and 
leaves; the fisherman’s rod, and float, and raft; the 
hunter’s snare; it bridges the torrent, bears water 
from the well, and irrigates the fields. It is food 
and medicine for cattle, and even for men ; and there 
is music, too, not only in the rustle of its leaves, but 
in its woody heart, from which more than one musical 
instrument is made. — Blackwood’ s Magazine. 
The Planting Industry in Java, — Sugar crops 
in the native principalities of Java have all been 
gathered in with unsatisfactory results, owing to the 
prevalence of canker among the cane. Sugar plan- | 
ters have taken to planting larger stretches of ground ! 
with cane to make good the smaller yields. The 
tobacco yield shows a falling off, and prices have so 1 
gone from bad to worse that leaf from the island i 
has become almost unsaleable at Amsterdam. Coffee 
on the other hand, promises well for next year, 1 
—Pinang Gazette, Nov. 7 th, 
