548 
THE TROPiCAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[February 2, 1891. 
Should the machine prove a success, he could be put 
into communication with people in India who would 
be willing to negociate with him for working it 
commercially. — Agricultural and Horticultural Society 
of India. 
♦ 
Handbook of Agricultueal and Commercial Con- 
cerns IN Netherlands India. — From Mr. J. H, 
de Bussy of Amsterdam we have received the 
third annual issue (for 1890) of the “ Handboek 
voor Cultuur-en Handels-Ondernemingen in Neder- 
landsoh-Indie.” This is a most useful work 
containing information regarding the various estates, 
firms, &c., in Ihe Dutch East and West Indies 
arranged in alphabetical order and with indexes 
of names. The Grovernment regulations for the 
cultivation of land and the cooly ordinances are 
also given. The whole, however, is in Dutch 
which to most Ceylon planters is “ double Dutch.” 
The Calcutta Incinerator. — Mr. Harrington 
writes as follows : — The incinerator is to be re- 
lighted on 6th December. The alterations that have 
been effected are— (1) The chimney has been 
heightened from 139 to 200 feet, (2) A powerful 
smoke crematorium has been constructed, (3) Self- 
acting hot air blasts have been introduced, which 
pass through the hottest part of the refuse furnaces 
on to the smoke crematorium ; and the smoke 
crematorium chamber is so intersected with rever- 
berating cross walls of heat absorbing material that a 
very high temperature will bo maintained therein. 
After these alterations and when the incinerator 
has become fairly heated, Mr. Harrington anticipates 
that there will be but little smoke escaping from 
the chimney. — Indian Engineer, Dec. 6th. 
IIow He Planted My Potatoes. — The piece 
of ground would be about 150 square j’ards in area, 
so rather le^s thiu 5 rods, and was sheltered nnd 
warm, and had been long under cultivation. The 
last digging it had got was when the winter frosts 
had departed, some time late in March- Johann 
was furnisbel with the ordinary Croatian hoe, fitted 
on a haudle of about 2 feet 6 inches long, and with 
the heart-shaped blade, and bending low, was scoop- 
ing out the shallow basins destined to receive the 
sets at the stretch of his long legs apart — that is, 
about 3 feet 6 inches. I could see that the quantity 
of “ seed ” required would be much less than by the 
English mode of planting; but I did not expostulate 
much with him about it, although I imagined that 
my crop would be a light one. The sets were duly 
planted, and the ground made level with the afore- 
said hoe. Under the hot sun of Southern Moravia 
the shoots soon came above ground, and here another 
surprise awaited me ; for when their earthing-up 
became necessary, my Croat, instead' of drawing up 
the earth in long ridge®, in English fashion, made a 
little rounded hillock around each stem, or bunch of 
stems, and as the tubers grew, and the hillock dis- 
tended under the pressure of growth below, more 
soil was drawn to it ; but at the finish each set had 
its own hillock of mould, independent of its neigh- 
bours. This fbrm of earthing-up allowed the haulm, 
which was strong, to lay on the ground, between the 
hills, and not on them, so that had disease attacked 
the Potatos, the spores of the Peronospora would 
have mainly fal'en on ground which contained no 
tnbera ; moreover, the sun’s rays shone on every part 
of the haulm — a matter of great importance in plant 
growth, more especially if the growth be of short dura- 
tion, 'i'he crop of Potatos was enormous, and measured 
from three-quarters to 1 peek at a root, which, at that 
rate, was 150 pocks for the 5 rods of ground planted. 
I felt that the foreigner, with his inborn oommon 
sense, had tauglil me a useful lesson ; hut it w.as 
only one among many that had slill to he mastered. 
Uecollectiona of an Englishman Abroad — Gardeners' 
Chronicle, \ 
Tank Ships in the Nitrate Trade.— A new 
departure in the construction of ships designed for 
the nitrate trade was heralded by the launching of 
the largest sailing ship in the world the other day, 
says the London City Leader. This ship is remark- 
able, not only for its size, hut for the arrangements 
made to preserve its cargo. Nitrate of soda has a 
strong attraction for water, absorbing so much of it 
from the air as to be dissolved by it in large quantities 
vrhen in hulk. The custom is to discharge this nitrate 
liquor overboard, and so lose it, but on the new vessel 
special tanks are fitted in the hold, into which the 
liquor drain-. — Bradstreets. 
The Technical Experts who, under the direction 
of Sir Colin Scott Moncrieff, have been to Merv 
for the purpose of examining the state of the 
irrigation works carried out by the Russian Ad- 
ministration in Central Asia on the Czar’s estate 
in that region, have returned to St. Petersburg, 
bringing very unfavourable reports of the condition 
of affairs. The Administration had proposed to 
effect the irrigation of about 250,000 acres of land, 
but from the Engineer’s report it appears that 
there is no hope of irrigating more than about 
32,000 acres at the outside. — 0, Mail. 
The Yield op Mariawatte, 1,347 lb?, an Ache ! 
— This is 0,-rtaiDly a splendid record, whether we take 
the old 100 acre plot or the whole of the large acreage 
under tea. From our old files we find that the follow- 
ing has befn the yield of this far famed field of tea 
for the past seven years : — 
1884 
1,092 lb. 
made 
tea per acre. 
1885 
1,178 
do. 
do. 
1886 
1,059 
do. 
do. 
1887 
1,126 
do. 
do. 
1888 
1,033 
do. 
do. 
1889 
1,105 
do. 
do. 
1890 
1,347 
do. 
do. 
Average of 7 years 
1,133 
do. 
do. 
Potato Disease. — Time 
■was 
when it seemed 
as if we had no means of arresting or mitigating this 
p'ague. But now we know that by proper modes of 
planting, adequate moulding, the selection of suit- 
able kinds, or the use of sulphate of copper solutioos, 
we have the means of controlling the disease to a 
large ex'ent. But although each of these methods 
has been made known widely, very few have availed 
themselves of them. They are specially suited for 
the cottagar, t e allotment gardener, and the culti- 
vator on a small scale, and it is disappointing to see 
no effort at all made to mitigate the pest. What 
is still more disht an eniug is to witne.ss the utter 
apathy with wh'ch ev -u intelligent cultivators allow 
the disease to be propagated wholesale by their 
cirelessness and their almo.st incredible negligence, 
which ensure the best possible neai:s of facilitating 
the growth and dispersion or the fungus. — Gardeners' 
.Chronicle. 
Cinchona Planting in Java. — An extraordinary 
general meeting of the shareholders in the West 
Java Cinchona Company was held in Amsterdam 
last week, when the managing director, Mr. M. J. 
Boissevsin, submitted certain proposals which seem 
to indicate that the undertaking is hardly so pros- 
perous as its proprietors could desire. It was 
proposed that of the four plantations belonging to 
the company — viz. Tjiseureuh, Bajabang, Pan- 
gairan and Tjidoerian -Ihe two former shall be 
entirely uprooted. The proceeds of the bark thus 
obtained are to be used to reduce the share capital 
of the. company. It is estimated that the capital 
will by this method be reduced by about 30 per 
cent., and it is hoped that the two remaining 
plantations will yield a sufficient profit to admit 
the payment of a fair dividend on the reduced 
capital. The proposal, which was the result of an 
investigation ol the company’s plantations by an 
expert, was unanimously agreed to . — Ohemist and 
Druggist, Dec. 19. 
