868 
THE TR0P5CAL AGRICULTURIST. [June i, 1891. 
SALT FOE THE GAEDEN. 
Hapwtale, 21st March. 
To tlie Editor of the Ceylon Examiner. 
Dear Sir, — Having read JB's excellent letter on salt 
for Agricult-ural purposes, I would take the liberty 
to pen a few lines on what has recently fallen with- 
in the scope of my experience. 
The plants in my garden here were subject to at- 
tacks from insects under ground. The worst among 
them were a kind of red termites or ants. I tried 
ashes and lime to get rid of them, but with little 
success. I then used Kerosine Oil mixed with water 
in the proportion of a wine glassful of the oil to a 
gallon of water with partial success, but not without 
injuring the plants more or less. Next I had re- 
course to salt, which had the desired effect — and 
more. For by its application I found that not only 
were the plants free from the pest, )3ut those to which 
it was applied thrived better than plants of the ' same 
kind whichwere not attacked by theinsects, and there- 
fore had no salt applied to them. The salt thus helped 
to bring on a healthy growth, and the v egetables treated 
with it w'ere better relished on the table. I believe this 
is a proof of the disirability of the use of salt in the 
vegetable garden, especially on these interior hills, 
where there is little chance of any appreciable quan- 
tity of salt being deposited on the land by saline 
spray carried by winds from the sea. 
Besides serving the gardener as an insecticide 
and manure, salt is useful to him as a hygro- 
scope; i, e, it helps the soil to take and retain 
moisture from the atmosphere, — an effect that will 
not be lightly valued in seasons of drought. I 
intend continuing my experiments with salt in 
the garden, and hope to let your readers know 
the results in course of time. In the meantime, 
however, I cannot help stating that the use of 
salt for the above-noticed and other purposes in 
Agriculture show the desirability of placing it 
within easier reach of the agriculturist as regards 
the price. — Yours truly, B. T. H. 
« 
The Ceylon Explorers of the Upper 
Amazon. — Our attention has been called to the 
fact that we were in error in describing both the 
Land Commissioners selected by Sir Alfred Dent, 
as “retired” Ceylon planters. Mr. Sinclair is 
rightly so designated (though he still holds soma 
property in Ceylon) ; but not Mr. A. Boss who besides 
holding ex' ensi VP iatcrests out here, had by no means, 
given up the idea of returning to work when he 
went home for health three years ago, and left 
his affairs in the hands of Mr. Munton of Kandy. 
Mr. Boss’s places in Ceylon we are glad to learn, 
are all doing well, and doubtless after his trip to 
Peru, he will return for another spell of work here 
and he will be heartily welcomed. 
The High-priced Ceylon Tha. — “ (Edipus ” 
writing to the Melbourne Lender says ; — 
A parcel of Ceylon tea has been sold by auction 
in Loudon at the outrageous price of 87 s per lb., and 
has been resold for IIOl Not even a s.ample is now 
to b.' bad at any price as it has been put into glass 
cases for exhibition at the retail sh' ps of the purchas- 
ing company. Nothing is said about the gross weight 
of thn parcel, nor is there any testimony as to the 
fUvor'. of the article, so that, after all, it may bo that 
a cup of ti a made from the ordinary sort at 2i a 
lb. rnay be intrinsically as good as that wbichwould 
cost 2 .S a Clip. It is a thing to he looked, at perhaps 
little more. The f rower.s will, liowever, be stimulated 
to producethe artioe! in such in- rchantable quantities 
ns may enable tea drinkers to indulge in its consum- 
ptimi. It is related of Iloby, the bootmaker, that when 
in Paris he was fascinated by the appi arauce of a 
single boot disijlayod m a sliop window, and ho 
resolved to pun hnso it. Ho inqiiii il its price, and 
ri (OMved for answer— ‘‘ Ah no ! I cannot sell that 
boot, beciiiMoI iiiado i in one moment of onthusia.sm.” 
Perhaps the Ceylon tea grower may be in a Bimilar 
position. 
Ten Millions — rather than on6’ million — of 
acres of land ia the limit Sir Alfred Dent’s 
Syndicate are empowered to take up in Eastern 
Peru 1 
A New Method of Building Wells. — Mr. Gunga 
Bam, Executive Engineer, Lahore, has invented al 
new and cheap method for building wells, for which 
the has taken out a patent. Tha secret of the 
invention lies in the use of specially moulded 
dovetailed brick, with which no mortar is required, 
and the bricks can easily be fitted and locked by 
unskilled labour. The wells would be both cheaper 
and stronger than those built in the ordinary way. 
— Indian Engineer. 
P’uEL FOR TEA. — It greatly suggested me to 
hear the other day from one of the leaning men con- 
nected with Ceylon planting Companies that for the 
fuel used upon one of their estates he was paying £4 a 
ton ! This instance is, of course, an isolated one. 
The estate has no fuel reserve, nor is it situated so as 
to obtain a supply of timber fuel from neighbouring 
sources. The consequence is the whole of its 
curing operation are dependent upon English coal, 
and the price of this delivered upon the estate 
is said to be that above given. What are 
you going to do when such instances become 
multiplied ? It must surely be a crushing thing 
to have to pay such a price considering how large 
a consumption of fuel is needed for the prepara- 
tion of tea. Can any of your readers tell us the 
prop rtiouate va’ue of wood and coal in such 
opri’dtions? For burning in loeom dives the standard 
of relative values is — if my mi mory serves me 
rightly — about to 1, but this data might not 
hold in the furnace of a tea-drier. Any way, I 
realise from the information given to me how serious 
a question your fuel supply must be to you. You 
will really have to fall back ere long on some 
such proposal as you yourselves made some years 
back, to have wire-rope tramways from the forests 
of the lowcountry to serve groups of cuhtiguous 
estates. — London Cor, 
Colonial Windfalls. — Great Hritain — says 
the Spectator — is not quite so fortunate as the United 
States, wuere every year they discover a mountain 
of cinnabar, or an oil-well yielding bnlf-a-million 
gallons a day, or a silver mine which seems 
inexhaustible,— but still, we have our windfalls too. 
The new silver-mines in Australia are said to be 
of unsurpassed richness ; Mr. Cecil Ehodes telegraphs 
about new gold-reef in Maehonaland about once a 
week; Canada has just discovered a vast deposit of 
silicious sand, which should enable her to make 
bottles for the American continent ; Ceylon finds that 
her cocoa fetches double prices; — [strange the editor 
did not think as well of our tea the finest in the 
world, our pearl fishery and mines of, plumbago 
and precious stones. —Ed. 2’. A .] —and now it is reported 
that diamoud-mines have been discovered in British 
Guiana, which, according to the Lieutenant-Governor, 
will be “a new and unrivalled source of prosperity 
for the Colony.” As no increase of supply appears 
to glut the desire for the bright little stones, that 
prophecy may prove correct. We hope it will, for 
of all the Colonies British Guiana most sadly 
wanted a fillip, and the presence of capital sufficient 
to tempt the Colonists into publio works. Curious 
it Ealeigh's dream should come true at last, and 
a city of fabulous wealth arise in British Guiana! 
We hope the Colonists will have poetry enough 
in their composition to name the capital of the 
new diamond-fields Manoa. Mr. Ehodes would, 
and ho will be hardly able to keep his fingers out 
of that pie. 
